Visual Neuroscience

Question 1

What are the layers of the retina in order from anterior to posterior?

Answer 1

Nerve fibre layer
Ganglion cell layer
Inner plexiform layer
Outer plexiform layer
Outer nuclear layer
Inner & Outer Segments of Photoreceptors
RPE
Choroid

Question 2

What is psychophysics?

Answer 2

• Study perception -> visual input vs sensory infor
• Cross-modal effects (motion sickness) – vagus nerve
  o Pxs who lose or ‘regain’ their vision

Question 3

Describe visual perception?

Answer 3

• High level processing (but have perception at every level – as soon as rods/cones convert light energy into biological energy)
  o Representation of a stimulus constructed from its physical properties by eye & brain
  o Recording & recognising info
  o A process of reconstruction using prior knowledge -> top down e.g. visual illusion

Question 4

Describe Helmholtz (Empiricism) theory of visual perception?

Answer 4

Data driven - bottom up
* Learned/ past experience
* Size, distance, form, and depth perception
* -> Perceived object

Question 5

Describe Gibson (Nativism) theory of visual perception?

Answer 5

Prediction driven - top down
* Innate, “built-in” knowledge
* ‘Visual cliff’

Question 6

Describe studying perceptual thresholds?

Answer 6

• Perception is appreciation of a physical situation through mediation of one or more senses
• Absolute threshold – smallest stimulus
• Eye test = series of psychophysical tests