Visual Angle and The Visual Cortex
The brain's primary visual cortex (area V1 or Brodmann area 17) contains a spatially isomorphic representation of the retina (see retinotopy). Loosely speaking, it is a distorted "map" of the retina. Accordingly, the size of a given retinal image determines the extent of the neural activity pattern eventually generated in area V1 by the associated retinal activity pattern.
Murray, Boyaci, & Kersten (2006) recently used Functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI to show, convincingly, that an increase in a viewed target's visual angle, which increases, increases the extent of the corresponding neural activity pattern in area V1.
Their most important finding, however, relates to the perceived visual angle and to the visual angle illusion.
Read more about this topic: Visual Angle
Famous quotes containing the words visual and/or angle:
“To write well, to have style ... is to paint. The master faculty of style is therefore the visual memory. If a writer does not see what he describes—countrysides and figures, movements and gestures—how could he have a style, that is originality?”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“From whichever angle one looks at it, the application of racial theories remains a striking proof of the lowered demands of public opinion upon the purity of critical judgment.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)