Vision
Coding and Efficiency

Professor Colin Blakemore presents a fascinating insight to all the major topics in visual science research.

Colin Blakemore (Author), K. Adler (Author), M. Pointon (Author)

9780521447690, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 May 1993

468 pages, 255 b/w illus. 2 colour illus. 10 tables
24.7 x 18.8 x 2.3 cm, 1.106 kg

' … the contents are of great interest to those who wish to have a better grasp of the mechanisms of perception …' The British Journal of Visual Impairment

Professor Colin Blakemore presents a fascinating insight to all the major topics in visual science research. Experts from around the world show how this vast subject can be unified from the viewpoint that describes the way in which visual systems efficiently encode and represent the outside world. The approach, which is both rigorous and general, was championed by H. B. Barlow in the fifties and has recently acquired a new significance in the light of exciting developments in computer science and artificial intelligence and vision. The book is essential reading for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in the field of vision research and neuroscience.

Part I. Concepts of Coding and Efficiency: 1. The quantum efficiency of vision
2. Coding efficiency and visual processing
3. Statistical limits to image understanding
4. The theory of comparative eye design
Part II. Efficiency of the Visual Pathway: 5. The design of compound eyes
6. The light response of photoreceptors
7. Is there more than meets the eye?
8. Quantum efficiency and performance of retinal ganglion cells
9. Neural interactions underlying direction-selectivity in the rabbit retina
10. Detection and discrimination mechansims in the striate cortex of the Old-World monkey
Part III. Colour: 11. The two subsystems of colour vision and their roles in wavelength discrimination
12. The effect of the angle of retinal incidence on the colour of monochromatic light
13. Fourier interferometric stimulation (FIS): the method and its applications
14. The chromatic coding of space
Part IV. Brightness, Adaptation and Contrast: 15. The role of photoreceptors in light-adaptation and dark-adaptation of the visual system
16. Why do we see better in bright light?
17. Mechanisms for coding luminance patterns: are they really linear?
18. Feature detection in biological and artificial visual systems
Part V. Development of Vision: 19. On reformation of visual projection: cellular and molecular aspects
20. Retinal pathways and the developmental basis of binocular vision
21. Development of visual callosal connections
22. Sensitive periods in visual development: insights gained from studies of recovery of visual function in cats following early monocular deprivation or cortical lesions
23. The developmental course of cortical processing streams in the human infant
24. Maturation of mechanisms for efficient spatial vision in primates
25. The puzzle of amblyopia
Part VI. Depth and Texture: 26. A single, most-efficient algorithm for stereopsis?
27. Binocular mechanisms in the normal and abnormal visual cortex of the cat
28. Viewing geometry and gradients of horizontal disparity
29. Texture discrimination: radiologist, machine and man
Part VII. Motion: 30. The motion pathways of the visual cortex
31. The utilitarian theory of perception
Part VIII. From Image to Object: 32. A theory about the functional role and synaptic mechanism of visual after-effects
33. Spatial and temporal summation in human vision
34. The efficiency of pictorial noise suppression in image processing
35. Algotecture of visual cortex
36. The iconic bottleneck and the tenuous link between early visual processing and perception
37. Pyramid algorithms for efficient vision
38. High level visual decision efficiences
Index.

Subject Areas: Neurosciences [PSAN], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR]