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
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