Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Total Rod Monochromats

Chapter 3 addresses everyday vision and the impact of Retinal Processing on our perception dealing with cones and rods. Our perception of colors (cones) and details (rods) are very important when figuring out what an object is. Looking at the graphs and different slides our Fovea is the most important and most sensitive part of the eye, which is made up of only cones. The Fovea is also very important because it takes less convergence making it easier to pin point where the object is coming from and processes things faster.
After reading this chapter and going over the slides, I started thinking what if a person did not have cones, was this possible? The answer is yes. A person can be born with just all rods due to a rare genetic defect. They call this defect total rod monochromats or achromatopsia. A person with this serious rare defect cannot see color at all, instead only shades of gray. When light increases their sight starts to go away, as a result people with achromatopsia wear dark tinted sunglasses. Here is a clip of an artist named Jay Lonewolf who suffers from rod monochromats . The way the artist paints is very inspiring and surprising to see him use bright colors in his paintings even though he cannot see them for himself. What do you think?

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