What Exactly Do We "see"

[SaxonViolence]

Here's something that I flashed on years ago, and have been wondering about ever since.....

 

You cannot see the terminus of your Field of View.

 

You think that you do.....

 

But what you're seeing is your nose, the top of your brow line, or the outer eye socket.

 

Close one eye. Fix your gaze on a point straight ahead, but turn your attention to the "Edges" of your Field of View--there are none.

 

Now we know that our Field of View does have limits--but.....

 

In the center is the Foveal Vision--what we use to thread a needle or read.

 

Its smaller than you'd think.

 

Then there is the Macular Vision--No where near as detailed as Foveal Vision, but useful nonetheless.

 

Finally is the Peripheral Vision--which see's no color, and is very lacking in detail--about all its good for is to tell us that we need to move our head, change our focus--and look to the side.

 

Somehow the Impressionists--through very detailed observation, but with little or no theory of sight--figured out how to capture and use this Phenomena.

 

There is a center area, with fair detail--a donut of less detailed, and slightly malformed area, much like you'd get looking into a convex mirror--and then the rest of the painting will be very rough and approximate.

 

This is precisely how one eye sees--for an instant.

 

See, if you explained what Foveal vision was, most folks would say that its much larger than it actually is.....

 

Why?

 

Because the eye, with its limited Field of View is scanning the Visual environment constantly, without us being consciously aware of it.....

 

And the Brain practices a sort of "Persistence of Vision".....

 

We looked at it just a fraction of a second ago. We will look at it again in another fraction or two.....

 

But the Brain remembers the last time it saw that area clearly, and it just hangs onto its last clear view until it gets the next clear view.

 

If you know how to "Look" at an Impressionist Painting, it will leap into 3-D Relief for you.

 

When you're trying to find this special way of looking.....

 

Close one Eye--preferably your Dominant Eye. Turn your head slightly away, so that you're looking at the Painting just slightly off center.

 

When you finally find the correct View Point, the Painting will look real. After you get it in focus, sometimes opening the other Eye, while holding the head fixed, will make the scene even more vibrant.

 

Eventually, you won't ordinarily have to close an Eye to properly see it.

 

Exception #1--A certain number of Impressionist's works aren't painted for this effect.

 

Exception #2--There are any number of people who didn't get it.

 

They saw the Impressionists succeeding in Art, by doing what they considered crude Paintings, so they went home to produce their own crude paintings. I think of these as "Faux Impressionism".

 

Obviously, if you want to Paint exactly what you see, you are going to get the briefest "Impression" as it were. There is a bit of a trick required by the viewer, to get the Eye to freeze its continual scanning, and continue to absorb one instant.....

 

I'm not at all sure that the Eye even can stop its ceaseless scanning--probably not.....

 

But it can learn to create a very good approximation of what it would see, if it could stand still.

 

Well, every impressionist work that I ever heard of, or can even conceive of, was Finite, and had definite Boarders.

 

But our Field of View isn't a Painting--so there the analogy breaks down....

 

So we know that our Eyes have a definite limit to their Field of View. We know that virtually every object that we see, comes to a Visual End.

 

Yet somehow our Brain Maps out a Visual Field that has no Boundaries--which we know is a Falsehood--yet we manage to navigate quite well in the real World despite being subject to some very powerful Illusions.

 

So far as I know, there is no good way to map or draw this distorted, Unbounded Field of View to Study it.....

 

Unless some of you are cleverer than I.

 

Saxon Violence

[Ken]

Here's something that I flashed on years ago, and have been wondering about ever since.....

 

You cannot see the terminus of your Field of View.

 

What do you mean by "terminus of your field of view"?

 

You think that you do.....

 

But what you're seeing is your nose, the top of your brow line, or the outer eye socket.

 

That defines the field of view. What you see that is not obstructed by nose, brow, etc. is the field of view.

 

Close one eye. Fix your gaze on a point straight ahead, but turn your attention to the "Edges" of your Field of View--there are none.

 

:o Of course there are "edges" to your field of view. They occur where you go from being able to see things to the periphery of your field of view where you can't see things (past the nose, brow, etc). :rolleyes:

 

Now we know that our Field of View does have limits--but.....

 

In the center is the Foveal Vision--what we use to thread a needle or read.

 

Its smaller than you'd think.

 

Then there is the Macular Vision--No where near as detailed as Foveal Vision, but useful nonetheless.

 

Finally is the Peripheral Vision--which see's no color, and is very lacking in detail--about all its good for is to tell us that we need to move our head, change our focus--and look to the side.

 

The Oesterberg graph of distribution of rods and cones explains this more completely.

 

 

Somehow the Impressionists--through very detailed observation, but with little or no theory of sight--figured out how to capture and use this Phenomena.

 

There is a center area, with fair detail--a donut of less detailed, and slightly malformed area, much like you'd get looking into a convex mirror--and then the rest of the painting will be very rough and approximate.

 

This is precisely how one eye sees--for an instant.

 

See, if you explained what Foveal vision was, most folks would say that its much larger than it actually is.....

 

Why?

 

Because the eye, with its limited Field of View is scanning the Visual environment constantly, without us being consciously aware of it.....

 

Those movements aren't technically "scans", they are small, frequent, movements or saccades, that prevent the retinal elements from adapting out. If you look at the research on stabilized images you will see that after very short periods of stabilized, or constant, stimulation the rods and cones stop responding.

 

And the Brain practices a sort of "Persistence of Vision".....

 

We looked at it just a fraction of a second ago. We will look at it again in another fraction or two.....

 

But the Brain remembers the last time it saw that area clearly, and it just hangs onto its last clear view until it gets the next clear view.

 

All of the foveal views are "clear", the visual centers basically synchronize with the average central foveal image when you are fixating on a spot, or object, in the visual field.

 

If you know how to "Look" at an Impressionist Painting, it will leap into 3-D Relief for you.

 

When you're trying to find this special way of looking.....

 

Close one Eye--preferably your Dominant Eye. Turn your head slightly away, so that you're looking at the Painting just slightly off center.

 

When you finally find the correct View Point, the Painting will look real. After you get it in focus, sometimes opening the other Eye, while holding the head fixed, will make the scene even more vibrant.

 

Eventually, you won't ordinarily have to close an Eye to properly see it.

 

I'll have to try that.

 

Exception #1--A certain number of Impressionist's works aren't painted for this effect.

 

Exception #2--There are any number of people who didn't get it.

 

They saw the Impressionists succeeding in Art, by doing what they considered crude Paintings, so they went home to produce their own crude paintings. I think of these as "Faux Impressionism".

 

Obviously, if you want to Paint exactly what you see, you are going to get the briefest "Impression" as it were. There is a bit of a trick required by the viewer, to get the Eye to freeze its continual scanning, and continue to absorb one instant.....

 

I'm not at all sure that the Eye even can stop its ceaseless scanning--probably not.....

 

No, the saccadic movements are not under voluntary control

 

But it can learn to create a very good approximation of what it would see, if it could stand still.

 

Well, every impressionist work that I ever heard of, or can even conceive of, was Finite, and had definite Boarders.

 

But our Field of View isn't a Painting--so there the analogy breaks down....

 

So we know that our Eyes have a definite limit to their Field of View. We know that virtually every object that we see, comes to a Visual End.

 

Yet somehow our Brain Maps out a Visual Field that has no Boundaries--which we know is a Falsehood--yet we manage to navigate quite well in the real World despite being subject to some very powerful Illusions.

 

So far as I know, there is no good way to map or draw this distorted, Unbounded Field of View to Study it.....

 

Unless some of you are cleverer than I.

 

If it's "un-bounded" how could you map it?

 

The actual field of view is relatively easy to map. Below is a map of the f.o.v of the rigtht eye.

 

 

[SaxonViolence]

That is enlightening.

 

Imagine though, for a moment, that I could close one Eye, and pull the other out of it's socket without damaging it, and that the Retinal Nerve would stretch as far as it needed to, without altering my visual perceptions. :blink:

 

That completely eliminates any question of a Bony Picture Frame.

 

What would I then "See"?

 

If I went to draw what I saw, what would it look like?

 

Or would the Scanning Motion, and the Brain's Averaging the images, destroy what I'm trying to see?

 

What if I could take a "Snap-Shot" through that Eye and froze the image?

 

Saxon Violence

[Ken]

That is enlightening.

 

Imagine though, for a moment, that I could close one Eye, and pull the other out of it's socket without damaging it, and that the Retinal Nerve would stretch as far as it needed to, without altering my visual perceptions. :blink:

 

That completely eliminates any question of a Bony Picture Frame.

 

What would I then "See"?

 

Your field of view would be limited by the limits of the pupillary opening. You wouldn't be able to see more than 180* and probably much less.

 

If I went to draw what I saw, what would it look like?

 

It would be a reasonably round field of view.

 

Or would the Scanning Motion, and the Brain's Averaging the images, destroy what I'm trying to see?

 

I don't see why that would happen. The saccadic movements serve to keep the individual retinal elements from "adapting out", i.e., a failure to respond to continuous stimulation.

 

What if I could take a "Snap-Shot" through that Eye and froze the image?

 

I'm not sure what you mean, but optically, the eye is no different than a camera. If you removed the retina and replaced it with film you would get an image on the film.

 

The difference could be described as film having a pretty uniform distribution of similar sized photo-reactive grain. The retina, as the Osterberg graph shows, has a very non-uniform distribution of the photo-reactive carrier structures (rods and cones).

 

You raise some very interesting questions.