Includes On the Web and In the News links curated by the authors, along with other audio/video content.

Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

News

In the News: Color Blindness Simulator

Description: This article accompanies the In the News feature in this chapter.

Video 

Video 1: Transplanting Photoreceptors

Description: Can we use retinal stem cells to transplant photoreceptors?

Video 2: How We See Color

Description: How do we see all the colors that make up our world?

Video 3: Neuroscience of Color Vision

Description: Neuroscientist Andrew Stockman explains how our eyes actually experience color and how easily they can be tricked!

Video 4: Teaching a Computer to Understand Pictures

Description:In a thrilling talk, computer vision expert Fei-Fei Li describes the state of the art –including the database of 15 million photos her team built to “teach” a computer to understand pictures.

Video 5: Optical Illusions Spotlight How the Brain Works

Description: Beau Lotto’s color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can’t normally see: how your brain works.

Video 6: Light and Neuronal Activity

Description: The molecular mechanisms of light-induced visual pathways.

Video 7: New Glasses for Color-Deficient Individuals

Description: Enchroma glasses help color-blind child see color.

Audio

Audio 1: Strangers in the Mirror 

Description: Discussion with neuroscientist Oliver Sacks about face blindness.

Web

On the Web 1: Webvision/Photoreceptors

Description: Webvision is essentially an online text covering numerous topics on vision. Photoreceptors, a part of that site, details the structure of rods and cones with high-magnification images; some animations are also available.

On the Web 2: Illusion of the Year

Description: Each year, there is a contest for the best visual Illusion of the Year. On this website, you can see all of the entrants for this year’s contest, as well as prior years’ entries.

On the Web 3: Argus II/Surgery/Alpha IMS/BrainPort/Corey Haas

Description: Videos show the Argus II implantable retina; the surgery to implant the Argus (not for the squeamish); an Alpha IMS recipient describing what he sees; a blind man who “sees” using BrainPort, which transmits a video image into an array of electrodes on his tongue; and Corey Haas, whose improved vision allows him to live a normal life after gene therapy.

On the Web 4: Causes of Color

Description: Causes of Color is a well-designed site with numerous exhibits on color in the real world and sections on color vision.

On the Web 5: Colorblindness/Neitzvision

Description: Colorblindness has very helpful information and illustrations, and the third page has an interactive demonstration of seven forms of color blindness. Neitzvision features color-blindness demonstrations and the research of Jay and Maureen Neitz, including a recent study in which inserting a human gene for the long-wave receptor turned dichromatic (red-green color-blind) monkeys into trichromats.

On the Web 6: Colblindor

Description: The Colblindor website demonstrates different types of color blindness and lets you drag and drop your own images to see how they would look to a person with each of those color deficiencies.

On the Web 7: Color Constancy

Description: AkiyoshiKitaoka’s Color Constancy website has many interesting examples of how prevailing colors of light in an image affect our perception of individual colors. In addition, she has some rather interesting examples of illusions of motion.

On the Web 8: Faceblind/Prosopagnosia

Description: Faceblind is the website of prosopagnosia research centers at Dartmouth, Harvard, and University College, London. Prosopagnosia, at Wikipedia, features a rotating brain that provides a 3D view of the fusiform face area’s location.

On the Web 9: Blindsight: Seeing Without Knowing It

Description: This is a Scientific American article with a fascinating video of a man using blindsight to walk down a hallway filled with obstacles.

On the Web 10: Hearing Motion/Exactly Like Breathing/Synesthesia/Genetics of Synesthesia/Tactile-Emotion Synesthesia

Description: Hearing Motion is a video about motion synesthesia research, and Exactly Like Breathing is a collection of interviews of synesthetes. Synesthesia is a Wikipedia article written by two researchers, and Neurophilosophy has an article on the genetics of synesthesia and another on tactile-emotion synesthesia.