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The illustration shows the electromagnetic spectrum, which consists of different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. Radio waves have the longest wavelength, about 103 meters. Wavelength gets increasingly shorter for microwave, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, x-rays and gamma rays. Gamma rays have a wavelength of about 10-12 meters. Frequency is inversely proportional to wavelength.
In the electromagnetic spectrum, visible light lies between 380 nm and 740 nm. (credit: modification of work by NASA)

Wave amplitude is perceived as luminous intensity, or brightness. The standard unit of intensity of light is the candela, which is approximately the luminous intensity of a one common candle.

Light waves travel 299,792 km per second in a vacuum, (and somewhat slower in various media such as air and water), and those waves arrive at the eye as long (red), medium (green), and short (blue) waves. What is termed “white light” is light that is perceived as white by the human eye. This effect is produced by light that stimulates equally the color receptors in the human eye. The apparent color of an object is the color (or colors) that the object reflects. Thus a red object reflects the red wavelengths in mixed (white) light and absorbs all other wavelengths of light.

Anatomy of the eye

The photoreceptive cells of the eye, where transduction of light to nervous impulses occurs, are located in the retina (shown in [link] ) on the inner surface of the back of the eye. But light does not impinge on the retina unaltered. It passes through other layers that process it so that it can be interpreted by the retina ( [link] b ). The cornea, the front transparent layer of the eye, and the crystalline lens, a transparent convex structure behind the cornea, both refract (bend) light to focus the image on the retina. The iris, which is conspicuous as the colored part of the eye, is a circular muscular ring lying between the lens and cornea that regulates the amount of light entering the eye. In conditions of high ambient light, the iris contracts, reducing the size of the pupil at its center. In conditions of low light, the iris relaxes and the pupil enlarges.

The left illustration shows a human eye, which is round and filled with vitreous humour. The optic nerve and retinal blood vessels exit the back of the eye. At the front of the eye is the lens with a pupil in the middle. The lens is covered by the iris, which in turn is covered by the cornea. The aqueous humour is a gel-like substance between the cornea and iris. The retina is the lining of the inner eye. A second illustration is a blowup which shows that the optic nerve is at the surface of the retina. Beneath the optic nerve is a layer of ganglion cells, and beneath this is a layer of bipolar cells. Both ganglia and bipolar cells are nerve cells with root-like appendages. Beneath the bipolar cell layer are the rods and cones. Rods and cones are similar in structure and column-like.
(a) The human eye is shown in cross section. (b) A blowup shows the layers of the retina.

The main function of the lens is to focus light on the retina and fovea centralis. The lens is dynamic, focusing and re-focusing light as the eye rests on near and far objects in the visual field. The lens is operated by muscles that stretch it flat or allow it to thicken, changing the focal length of light coming through it to focus it sharply on the retina. With age comes the loss of the flexibility of the lens, and a form of farsightedness called presbyopia results. Presbyopia occurs because the image focuses behind the retina. Presbyopia is a deficit similar to a different type of farsightedness called hyperopia caused by an eyeball that is too short. For both defects, images in the distance are clear but images nearby are blurry. Myopia (nearsightedness) occurs when an eyeball is elongated and the image focus falls in front of the retina. In this case, images in the distance are blurry but images nearby are clear.

There are two types of photoreceptors in the retina: rods and cones , named for their general appearance as illustrated in [link] . Rods are strongly photosensitive and are located in the outer edges of the retina. They detect dim light and are used primarily for peripheral and nighttime vision. Cones are weakly photosensitive and are located near the center of the retina. They respond to bright light, and their primary role is in daytime, color vision.

This illustration shows that rods and cones are both long, column-like cells with the nucleus located in the bottom portion. The rod is longer than the cone. The outer segment of the rod contains rhodopsin. The outer segment of the rod contains other photo-pigments. An oil droplet is located beneath the outer segment.
Rods and cones are photoreceptors in the retina. Rods respond in low light and can detect only shades of gray. Cones respond in intense light and are responsible for color vision. (credit: modification of work by Piotr Sliwa)

The fovea is the region in the center back of the eye that is responsible for acute vision. The fovea has a high density of cones. When you bring your gaze to an object to examine it intently in bright light, the eyes orient so that the object’s image falls on the fovea. However, when looking at a star in the night sky or other object in dim light, the object can be better viewed by the peripheral vision because it is the rods at the edges of the retina, rather than the cones at the center, that operate better in low light. In humans, cones far outnumber rods in the fovea.

Transduction of light

The rods and cones are the site of transduction of light to a neural signal. Both rods and cones contain photopigments. In vertebrates, the main photopigment, rhodopsin, has two main parts: an opsin, which is a membrane protein (in the form of a cluster of α-helices that span the membrane), and retinal—a molecule that absorbs light. When light hits a photoreceptor, it causes a shape change in the retinal, altering its structure from a bent ( cis ) form of the molecule to its linear ( trans ) isomer. This isomerization of retinal activates the rhodopsin, starting a cascade of events that ends with a change in the membrane potential of the rod or cone cell.

Trichromatic coding

There are three types of cones (with different photopsins), and they differ in the wavelength to which they are most responsive, as shown in [link] . Some cones are maximally responsive to short light waves of 420 nm, so they are called S cones (“S” for “short”); others respond maximally to waves of 530 nm (M cones, for “medium”); a third group responds maximally to light of longer wavelengths, at 560 nm (L, or “long” cones). With only one type of cone, color vision would not be possible, and a two-cone (dichromatic) system has limitations. Primates use a three-cone (trichromatic) system, resulting in full color vision.

The color we perceive is a result of the ratio of activity of our three types of cones. The colors of the visual spectrum, running from long-wavelength light to short, are red (700 nm), orange (600 nm), yellow (565 nm), green (497 nm), blue (470 nm), indigo (450 nm), and violet (425 nm). Humans have very sensitive perception of color and can distinguish about 500 levels of brightness, 200 different hues, and 20 steps of saturation, or about 2 million distinct colors.

 Graph plots normalized absorbance for rods and S, M and L cones against wavelength. For all four cell types, the trend is an approximately bell-shaped curve with a steeper decrease than increase. For S cones the peak absorbance is 420 nanometers. For rods the peak absorbance is 498 nanometers. For M cones the peak absorbance is 534 nanometers. For L cones the peak absorbance is 564 nanometers.
Human rod cells and the different types of cone cells each have an optimal wavelength. However, there is considerable overlap in the wavelengths of light detected.

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Source:  OpenStax, Principles of biology. OpenStax CNX. Aug 09, 2016 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11569/1.25
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