Test Your Peripheral Vision

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Peripheral vision is the reason as to why we can see about 180 degree’s out of our eyes. Peripheral vision or side vision detects objects outside the direct line of vision. For example, when someone is walking into the room or a car is coming up next to you, your peripheral vision tells you where to look. Central vision is when you are focused on one specific thing, reading this paragraph is an example, you are focused on one word within the sentence, paragraph, and page using your central vision.
In the back of your eye there is a light-sensitive lining called your retina. The light receiving cells are called your cone and rod cells. The central region of the retina is called the fovea. The cone cells are only sensitive to color and are most abundant in the fovea. The characteristic of having cone cells is that it gives you the sharpest view of an object. There are also three different types of cone cells, they would be: the short-wavelength sensitive cones, the middle-wavelength sensitive cones, and the long-wavelength sensitive cones or known as S-cone, M-cone, and L-cone. The cones are known of having three colors, red, green, and blue. The red makes up about 64 percent, green makes up about 32 percent, and blue makes up only 2 percent, based on measured response curves. The “blue” cones have the highest sensitivity, and are mainly found outside of the fovea. The “red” and “green” cones concentrate more on the fovea centralis (Hecht 2nd Ed, Sec 5.7).
Rod cells are better at finding and seeing objects in the dim light. Unlike cone cells rod cells are not sensitive to color. Rod cells are also responsible for your ability to detect objects moving toward you before you can focus on them, also they are very sensitive to motion...

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...couple seconds for it to re-adjust to the color it is seeing. So your cone cells don’t get too excited and go crazy. Part of the reason you need to have objects close to your face so you can see shape and color is so that you can also see them clearly. Some people with peripheral vision especially need objects close to their face due to having the problem they have with seeing different objects clearly.

Works Cited

• Color Vision & Art. (n.d.). In www.webexhibits.org. Retrieved March 24, 2014, from http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/ag.html

• The Organization of the Retina and Visual System. (n.d.). Webvision . In webvision.med. Retrieved March 24, 2014, from http://webvision.med.utah.edu/book/part-xiii-facts-and-figures-concerning-the-human-retina/
• Science Buddies. (n.d.). In sciencebuddies.org. Retrieved March 25, 2014, from http://www.sciencebuddies.org/

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