655-111 Vision: How The Eye Sees The World

This subject aims to provide a primary understanding of basic vision functions and visual perception. Topics to be covered include light, its measurement and quantification, the transmission characteristics of the eye and perceptual attributes; basic anatomy of the eye and visual pathways as they relate to visual perception and refractive error (near-sightedness, far-sightedness and astigmatism); detailed anatomy of the orbit, and orbital contents, including the extra-ocular muscles and their actions; comparative anatomy and physiology discussing how human eyes are at the same time both similar and dissimilar to those of other species with regard to general structure, colour vision, visual acuity and accommodation; experimental approaches used to measure sensory modalities; fundamental attributes of our monocular processes such as the perception of colour, temporal (flicker) vision, form (spatial) vision and the space sense; and basic binocular function including the perception of depth and stereopsis. You will learn what 20/20 vision means and why we perceive depth with the 'magic eye' pictures. Congenital and acquired visual anomalies will be used throughout the course to illustrate visual dysfunction.

Two 30-minute multiple-choice tests held during the semester (5% each); six practical report sheets submitted at the end of each practical (15% total); a 2-hour written examination in the examination period (75%).

• S H Schwartz, Visual Perception: A Clinical Orientation. 2nd edn, Appelton and Lange, 1994.
• E B Goldstein, Sensation and Perception. Wadsworth-Thompson Learning, 2002.