Important Dates in Vision Science

A Chronological History of Vision Research: 1600-1960

Introduction

Comments as to the accuracy and importance of the events listed will be very welcome, as will additions to the list. Please send email to Jack Yellott ( jyellott@aris.ss.uci.edu).

Visual Science Before 1600

Chronology: 1600-1960

• 1604
  • Kepler's Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena: First explanation of the optics of the eye.
• 1610
  • Galileo publishes the Siderial Messenger. First scientific look at the sky through a telescope.
• 1611
  • Kepler's Dioptrice: First explanation of the optics of myopia. Projection theory of stereoscopic vision.
• 1619
  • Scheiner's Oculus: First demonstration that accommodation is an active process. First use of fixatives to preserve the eye for anatomical study. First accurate diagrams of the human eye. Discovery of the pupillary "near reflex."
• 1621
  • Snell's law. (Kepler's optical analysis of the eye was based on a small angle, linear approximation to Snell's law.)
• 1625
  • Scheiner: First direct observation of the retinal image.
• 1637
  • Descartes' La Dioptrique. Corpuscular theory of light. First suggestion of point to point projection of retina onto brain (in his view, onto the walls of the ventricles).
• 1664
  • Willis traces the optic tract to the thalamus.
• 1665
  • Grimaldi describes diffraction (posthumously).
• 1666
  • Newton's prism experiments begin color science.
• 1675
  • Roemer measures the speed of light.
• 1678
  • Briggs describes fibers in the retina.
• 1681
  • Mariotte discovers the blind spot; articulates trichromacy of human color vision.
• 1682
  • Newton proposes partial decussation at the optic chiasm.
• 1684
  • First microscopic observation of the retina: Leeuwenhoek notices structures now known to be the rods and cones.
• 1684
  • Briggs describes night blindness.
• 1690
  • Huygens: Longitudinal wave model of light; discovery of polarization .
• 1700
  • Ruysch describes ocular circulatory system.
• 1704
  • Newton's Optics.
• 1705
  • Hooke reports (posthumously) 1/2' limit of visual acuity.
• 1719
  • Morgani describes homonymous hemianopia.
• 1751
  • Whytt explains neurology of pupillary light reflex.
• 1755
  • LeRoy demonstrates electrical phosphenes in blind observers: First hint of a relationship between electricity and vision.
• 1757
  • Lomonosov suggests three-"particle" basis of color vision.
• 1760
  • Bouguer measures luminance contrast thresholds, prediscovers Weber's Law.
• 1776
  • Gennari describes striate area of occipital cortex.
• 1789
  • Maskelyne describes night myopia.
• 1798
  • Dalton describes color blindness (his own deuteranopia).
• 1800
  • Herschel discovers infrared light.
• 1801
  • Young discovers astigmation and proves that accommodation is not due to changes in the length of the eye or in the curvature of the cornea.
  • Young proposes three receptor theory of color vision.
  • Ritter discovers ultraviolet light.
• 1802
  • Young discovers interference.
• 1804
  • Troxler describes loss of color in the periphery of the visual field.
• 1807
  • Gall proposes concept of localization of mental functions in the cortex.
• 1808
  • French Academy refuses to admit Gall on grounds that the cortex has nothing to do with thinking.
• 1817
  • Young proposes transverse wave model of light.
  • Josef Fraunhofer discovers the "Fraunhofer lines" in the spectrum of sunlight.
• 1818
  • Vieth-Muller horopter.
• 1824
  • Wollaston explains homonymous hemianopia in terms of partial decussation at the chiasm.
  • Flourens demonstrates loss of vision following cortical lesions (first proof that the cortex is involved in vision).
• 1825
  • Purkinje describes optokinetic nystagmus, entopic visualization of retina blood vessels, "Purkinje shift" in spectral luminosity during dark adaptation, blue arcs of the retina, "Purkinje images" (reflections from surfaces of cornea, lens), and motion aftereffects.
• 1826
  • Niepce makes the first photograph.
  • J. Muller proposes doctrine of specific energy of nerves, explains optics of compound eyes.
• 1829
  • Plateau initiates study of flicker, discovers stroboscopic movement, invents motion pictures (the "phenakistoscope")
• 1832
  • Chevreul describes simultaneous color contrast.
  • Weber measures increment thresholds; Weber's law.
• 1833
  • Wheatstone invents the stereoscope.
• 1834
  • Plateau-Talbot law.
  • Robert Addams rediscovers the motion aftereffect after looking at the Waterfall of Foyers in Scotland: an illusory motion that notwithstanding the fact that there were at least three earlier reports on this effect, still became known as the Waterfall Illusion. The effect was probably first described by Aristotle in his treatise on dreams. The direction of this illusory motion was first described by Lucretius, a couple of centuries later. In 1825 Johann Evangeliste Purkyne also described the phenomenon after having looked at a cavalry parade.
• 1838
  • Fechner discovers subjective color.
• 1841
  • Dove shows that stereopsis does not depend on eye movements.
• 1844
  • Haidinger's brushes.
• 1845
  • Masson shows that Weber's law fails at low luminances.
• 1847
  • Donder's law of ocular movements.
• 1849
  • Du Bois Reymond discovers the resting potential of the eye.
• 1851
  • H. Muller notices visual purple in rods.
  • Helmholtz invents the opthalmoscope.
• 1853
  • Grassman formulates laws of trichromacy.
• 1854
  • H. Mueller proves that photoreception occurs in the rods and cones.
  • Gratiolet traces visual radiation from thalamus to occipital cortex.
  • Listing's law of ocular movements.
• 1856
  • Maxwell tests validity of Grassman's laws; discovers "Maxwell's spot."
  • Helmholtz proves that accommodation is effected by a reshaping of the lens.
  • Von Graefe introduces clinical perimentry.
  • Helmholtz' Handbuch der Physiologischen Optik.
• 1857
  • Aubert and Forster demonstrate extrafoveal falloff in acuity.
  • Bergmann reports distorted percepts of high frequency gratings attributable to photoreceptor aliasing.
• 1858
  • Panum measures areas of stereoscopic fusion.
• 1860
  • Fechner's Element der Psychophysik.
• 1862
  • Maxwell's theory of electromagnetic radiation.
• 1864
  • Donders explains principles of clinical refraction and prescription.
• 1865
  • Aubert: First quantitative studies of absolute threshold and dark adaptation.
  • Mach describes "Mach bands," suggests lateral inhibition in the retina.
  • First measurements of stereoscopic acuity (Hering, Helmholtz).
• 1866
  • Holmgren discovers the electroretinogram.
  • Schultz distinguishes rods and cones; proposes duplicity theory of the retina.
• 1867
  • Helmholtz discovers the Bezold-Brucke effect.
• 1870
  • Meynert shows that optic radiation terminates in striate area.
• 1875
  • Golgi stain.
  • von Gudden establishes partial decussation at the chiasm.
  • Hering proposes opponent process theory of color vision.
  • Exner describes apparent motion.
• 1876
  • Boll discovers that "visual purple" is bleached by light.
• 1877
  • Ricco's law.
• 1878
  • Kuehne isolates rhodopsin.
• 1879
  • Munk formulates concept of topographic projection of retina onto occipital cortex.
• 1880
  • Kuehne and Steiner measure gross electrical response of isolated retina.
• 1881
  • Rayleigh's anomaloscope.
• 1885
  • Bloch's law.
• 1886
  • Konig "Fundamentals."
• 1890
  • Willbrand proposes point to point projection of retina onto striate area.
• 1892
  • Ferry-Porter law.
• 1892
  • Wulfing measures vernier acuity.
• 1893
  • Cajal's La retine des vertebres: first complete description of retinal neuroanatomy as revealed by Golgi stain.
  • Abbe initiates Fourier optics (first informed manipulations of image spectrum).
• 1894
  • Konig demonstrates agreement between absorption spectrum of rhodopsin and scotopic spectal sensitivity.
• 1896
  • Flechsig describes course of visual radiation from lateral geniculate nucleus to striate area (based on myelogenesis).
  • Stratton experiments with inverted retinal images.
• 1900
  • Planck introduces quantum concept.
• 1903
  • Piper's law.
• 1905
  • Einstein's photon theory.
• 1910
  • Minkowski demonstrates point to point projection onto striate area in dogs via behavioral methods.
  • Stigler describes metacontrast.
• 1911
  • Gullstrand invents the slit lamp.
• 1912
  • Wertheimer's studies of apparent motion.
• 1913
  • Abney's law.
  • Minkowski demonstrates separate laminar terminations of left and right optic nerve fibers in lateral geniculate nucleus.
• 1918
  • Holmes presents first map of striate cortical projection of the visual field in man.
• 1920
  • First anatomical demonstration of point to point projection of retina onto lateral geniculate nucleus (Minkowski, Brouwer and Zeeman).
• 1922
  • First application of Fourier analysis to flicker sensitivity (Ives).
• 1924
  • First C. I. E. photopic luminosity function.
• 1925
  • Holm demonstrates that vitamin A deficiency causes night blindness.
• 1927
  • First recording of electrical activity in optic nerve (Adrian and Matthews)
• 1929
  • Berger discovers alpha component of the EEG.
• 1929
  • First electrical stimulation of human visual cortex tFoerster and Penfield).
• 1931
  • C. I. E. standardizes calorimetry (Guild-Wright primaries).
  • First measurement of rhodopsin regeneration in vivo (Tansley)
• 1932
  • First recording of electrical activity in single optic nerve fibers (in limulus; Hartline and Graham).
• 1933
  • Stiles and Crawford demonstrate directional sensitivity of cones.
  • Wald finds vitamin A in rhodopsin.
  • First electronically amplified human ERG (Cooper, Creed, and Granit)
• 1935
  • Osterberg: First cell count of rods and cones in human retina.
  • LeGrand measures visual acuity bypassing the optics of the eye.
• 1939
  • Stiles introduces Pi mechanism analysis of increment thresholds.
• 1941
  • First mapping of the cortical projection of the retina based on electrical responses (Talbot and Marshall).
• 1942
  • Hecht, Schlarr, and Pirenne show that rods respond to single quanta.
• 1943
  • DeVries-Rose law.
• 1947
  • Granit distinguishes sustained and transient ganglion cells.
• 1948
  • Gabor describes principles of holography.
  • Rose introduces the concept of detection quantum efficiency
• 1949
  • Transient VEP first reported by C. C. Evans
• 1951
  • C. I. E. standardizes scotopic luminosity function.
• 1952
  • First electrical recording from individual mammalian retinal ganglion cells: Discovery of antagonistic center-surround organization of receptive fields (Kuffler).
  • First demonstration of disappearance of stabilized retinal images (Ditchburn and Ginsborg; Riggs, Ratcliff, Cornsweet and Cornsweet).
• 1953
  • First recording from horizontal cells (Svaetichin's S potential).
• 1954
  • First psychophysical demonstration of rod saturation (Aguilar and Stiles).
  • Peterson, Birdsall and Fox present the theory of signal detectability.
  • Tanner and Swets apply the theory of signal detectability to human sensation.
• 1955
  • Photoreversal (Hagins, Hubbard, and Kropf).
  • Jameson and Hurvich use hue cancellation to infer opponent color codes.
  • First study of rhodopsin regeneration in living human retina by ophthalmic densitometry by Rushton, Campbell, Hagins, and Brindley.
  • Rushton demonstrates light induced changes in human cone pigments; identifies chlorolabe and erythrolabe.
  • Flament makes the first measurement of the line-spread function of the human eye.
  • Kanizsa describes subjective contours.
• 1956
  • First measurement of human spatial modulation transfer function by Schade.
  • Barlow demonstrates the existence of dark light at absolute threshold.
• 1957
  • Reichardt presents an autocorrelation model for motion detection.
• 1959
  • Land's color demonstrations.
  • First electrical recording from individual visual cortical neurons; discovery of simple, complex, hypercomplex receptive fields by Hubel and Weisel.
  • Lettvin, Maturana, McCullogh and Pitt examine feature detectors in the frog visual system.
• 1960
  • Publication of first random dot stereogram by Julesz.
  • Sperling uses partial report to measure iconic memory.

We thank the following vision scientists for their contributions to this list.

• Jim Bellingham, Institute of Ophthalmology, London
• Ted Cohn, UC Berkeley
• Hans Irtel, U. Mannheim
• Bela Julesz, Rutgers
• Dan Kersten, U. Minnesota
• Leonard Trejo, U. Illinois at Urbana-Champagne
• Frans Verstraten, McGill

References

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Baumgardt, E. (1972) Threshold quantal problems. In Handbook of Sensory Physiology, Vol. VII/4: Visual Psychophysics. (Edited by Jameson, D., and Hurvich, L.M.) Springer-Verlag, New York.

Blackwell, H. R. (1972) Luminance difference thresholds. In Handbook of Sensory Physiology, Vol. VII/4: Visual Psychophysics. (Edited by Jameson, D., and Hurvich, L.M.) Springer-Verlag, New York.

Boring, E. G. (1942) Sensation and perception in the History of Experimental Psychology. Appleton-Century, New York.

Brindley, G. S. (1970) Physiology of the Retina and Visual Pathway. Williams & Wilkins Co., Baltimore.

Cornsweet, T. N. and Yellott, J. I. (in press) - Visual Perception. In Handbook of Physiology, Vol. II. (Edited by Darian-Smith, I.) American Physiological Society.

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Duke-Elder, S. and Scott, G. I. (1971) System of Ophthalmology, Vol. XII: Neuroopthalmology. C. V. Mosby Co., St. Louis.

Fraunhofer, J. (1817). Bestimmung des Brechungs- und Farbenzerstreuungs-Vermoegens verschiedener Glasarten, in Bezug auf die Vervollkommnung achromatischer Fernroehre. Denkschriften der koeniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Muenchen, 5, 193-226 (also in: Gilberts Annalen der Physik, 56, 264-313).

Julesz, B. (1960) Binocular depth perception of computer-generated patterns, Bell System Technical Journal 39, 1125-62.

Kanizsa, G. (1955) Margini quasi-percettivi in campi con stimolazione omogenea. Rivista di Psicologia, 49, 7-30.

Kelly, D. H. (1972) Flicker. In Handbook of Sensory Physiology, Vol. VII/4: Visual Psychophysics. (Edited by Jameson, D., and Hurvich, L.M.) Springer-Verlag, New York.

Lucretius (1975) De Rerum Natura. Translated into English by W.H.D. Rouse. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Pledge, H. T. (1952) Science Since 1500. Harper & Bros., New York.

Polyak, S. L. (1957) The Vertebrate Visual System. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Purkinje, J.E. (1825). Beobachtungen und Versuche zur Physiologie der Sinne. Bd II. Neurere Beitrage zur Kenntnis des Sehens in subjectiver Hinsicht. Berlin: Reimer.

Reichardt, W. (1957) Autokorrelationsauswertung als Funktionsprinzip des Zentralnervensystems, Z. Naturforsch 1957, 12b, 447-457.

Rose, A. (1948). The sensitivity performance of the human eye on an absolute scale. Journal of the Optical Society of America 38, 196-208.

Wertheimer, G. (1972) Visual acuity and spatial modulation thresholds. In Handbook of Sensory Physiology, Vol. VII/4: Visual Psychophysics. (Edited by Jameson, D., and Hurvich, L.M.) Springer-Verlag, New York.