ISBN : 9780878937578
This book describes how we see. It is about the eyes, how they capture an image and convert it to the neural messages that result in visual experience. The First Steps in Seeing has been written in a manner that is understandable to all. The number of technical terms has been restricted, and those that are used are illustrated with hundreds of full-colour pictures, icons and graphs.
Prologue: The watch
1. The chase
2. Eyes
3. Retinas
INTERLUDE: SIZE
4. The rain of photons onto cones
INTERLUDE: NEURONS
5. A cone pathway
6. The rain of photons onto rods
7. Night and day
INTERLUDE: PLOTTING LIGHT INTENSITY
8. How photoreceptors work
INTERLUDE: RHODOPSINS
9. Retinal organization
10. Photoreceptor attributes
11. Cell types
12. Informing the brain
13. Looking
14. Seeing
Epilogue: Ignorance