Introduction to Vision

What you’ll learn to do: explain the process of vision and how people see color and depth

Several photographs of peoples’ eyes are shown.

Figure 1. Our eyes take in sensory information that helps us understand the world around us. (credit “top left”: modification of work by “rajkumar1220″/Flickr”; credit “top right”: modification of work by Thomas Leuthard; credit “middle left”: modification of work by Demietrich Baker; credit “middle right”: modification of work by “kaybee07″/Flickr; credit “bottom left”: modification of work by “Isengardt”/Flickr; credit “bottom right”: modification of work by Willem Heerbaart)

The visual system constructs a mental representation of the world around us. This contributes to our ability to successfully navigate through physical space and interact with important individuals and objects in our environments. This section will provide an overview of the basic anatomy and function of the visual system. In addition, you’ll explore our ability to perceive color and depth.

Learning Objectives

  • Describe the basic anatomy of the visual system
  • Describe how light waves enable vision
  • Describe the trichromatic theory of color vision and the opponent-process theory
  • Describe how monocular and binocular cues are used in the perception of depth