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On the optical theory of underwater vision in humans

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Author

Summary, in English

Defocus changes the visual contrast sensitivity function, thereby creating a complex curve with local dips and peaks. Since underwater vision in humans is severely defocused, we used optical theory and the phenomenon of spurious resolution to predict how well humans can see in this environment. The values obtained correspond well with experimental measurements of underwater human acuity from earlier studies and even point to an opportunity for humans with exceptional contrast sensitivity to see better underwater than the children in those studies. The same theory could be useful when discussing the visual acuity of amphibious animals, as they may use pupil constriction as a means of improving underwater vision.

Publishing year

2004

Language

English

Pages

2061-2064

Publication/Series

Journal of the Optical Society of America A

Volume

21

Issue

11

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Optical Society of America

Topic

  • Evolutionary Biology

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1084-7529