Retinal Image Formation and Sampling in a Three-Dimensional World

Abstract

In this review, I develop an empirically based model of optical image formation by the human eye, followed by neural sampling by retinal ganglion cells, to demonstrate the perceptual effects of blur, aliasing, and distortion of visual space in the brain. The optical model takes account of ocular aberrations and their variation across the visual field, in addition to variations of defocus due to variation of target vergence in three-dimensional scenes. Neural sampling by retinal ganglion cells with receptive field size and spacing that increases with eccentricity is used to visualize the neural image carried by the optic nerve to the brain. Anatomical parameters are derived from psychophysical studies of sampling-limited visual resolution of sinusoidal interference fringes. Retinotopic projection of the neural image onto brainstem nuclei reveals features of the neural image in a perceptually uniform brain space where location and size of visual objects may be measured by counting neurons.