Title
Recovery from the increase of the Stiles-Crawford effect after bleaching
Author
Walraven, P.L.
Instituut voor Zintuigfysiologie TNO
Publication year
1966
Abstract
THE Stiles–Crawford effect1,2, or the dependence of luminous efficiency on the eccentricity of the point of entry of the light in the pupil, is a function of the wavelength of the light. In Fig. 1 is given the inverse 1/ of the luminous efficiency as a function of wave-length at a distance of 3.5 mm from the point of maximum efficiency, according to the measurements of Stiles3. In the same graph is a theoretical curve according with the explanation by Walraven and Bouman4. The dip in the curve in the yellow-green is due to the high absorption (about 80 percent) by the visual pigments of perpendicularly incident light in that region of the spectrum. Perpendicularly, light traverses the whole amount of pigment, while obliquely incident light leaks out of the receptor and therefore has a much shorter absorbent pathway to travel. But shortening of the pathway through a solution of high optical density is accompanied by a narrowing of the spectral absorption curves of the pigments. In other words, when the pigment has a high absorption, there is only a small chance that light will leak out of the receptor obliquely, so that nearly all of it will be absorbed. With low density, however, there is more opportunity for leakage, which is why the Stiles–Crawford effect is larger at both ends of tlrs spectrum than in the middle.
Subject
Vision
visual pigment
article
human
physiology
vision
Human
Retinal Pigments
Vision
To reference this document use:
http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:fc0735ca-68ba-4610-b7c1-949044be0385
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/210311a0
TNO identifier
3996
Source
Nature, 206 (4981), 311-312
Document type
article