Focused and defocused retinal images with Bessel and axicon pupil functions.

Retinal image light distributions in a standard optical model of a diffraction-limited eye with round pupils are presented for several patterns of amplitude and phase modulation of the light admitted into the eye. Of special interest are circularly symmetrical configurations of truncated Bessel amplitude transmission functions, and of light subjected to axicon deviation. It is shown by several examples that this kind of beam shaping allows generation of retinal imagery, which can be more robust to defocus while maintaining minimal image degradation, and it points to situations of two separate zones simultaneously in sharp focus, several diopters apart

Hering Hermeneutics: Supplement to Translation and Commentary of Hering (1899) by Strasburger et al.

Strasburger et al.'s welcome translation of Hering's seminal paper, and reminder of what Hering actually said about eye movements and spatial averaging in vernier acuity, is supplemented by references to further trends on how the subject has evolved to the present state of knowledge

Hering Hermeneutics: Supplement to Translation and Commentary of Hering (1899) by Strasburger et al.

Strasburger et al.'s welcome translation of Hering's seminal paper, and reminder of what Hering actually said about eye movements and spatial averaging in vernier acuity, is supplemented by references to further trends on how the subject has evolved to the present state of knowledge

Anisotropies in peripheral vernier acuity

Vernier acuity for short horizontal, vertical and oblique target lines was measured in many locations in the periphery of the visual field in normal human observers. In the 10 deg periphery the average alignment threshold with oblique vernier lines in eight locations for three observers was 2.29 times higher than that with vertical and horizontal target lines. This oblique effect was found everywhere in the visual field. Similar conclusions are drawn for configurations in which the lines were replaced by just their distal endpoints, but here, additionally, performance was distinctly better when the dot pair was collinear with the fixation point, i.e. oriented radially, than when it was oriented tangentially. Both for vernier lines and for dot pairs, in all observers horizontal configurations showed somewhat better thresholds than vertical ones. These results suggest an inherent pattern of connectivity throughout the visual field favoring processing in the cardinal orientations over the obliques, the radial over the tangential and, to a limited extent, the horizontal over the vertical

Optotype recognition under degradation: comparison of size, contrast, blur, noise and contour-perturbation effects.

BackgroundVisual acuity is measured by diminishing letter size till recognition threshold is reached, letters varying in legibility. In this experiment, size reduction was compared with other means of handicapping letter legibility.MethodsIn five normal observers, discrimination thresholds for 13 sans-serif capital letters in a 5 × 4 format were obtained by a staircase procedure for size reduction, as well as for 20 minutes of arc (logMAR = 0.6) letters subjected to four kinds of image degradation: reducing contrast, convolving with blurring spread, embedding in noise and perturbing contour smoothness.ResultsThreshold correlation and distribution of response errors show prominent differences and indicate the degree to which the visual processing of the various modes of image degradation is distinct.ConclusionsThe validation of four other ways of impairing the recognition of optotypes in addition to size diminution reveals their potential in the differential diagnosis of defects in pattern detection, in evaluating therapeutic regimens and in developing concepts of form perception