The
visual system is the part of the
central nervous system which enables organisms to
see. It interprets the information from
visible light to build a representation of the world surrounding the
body. The visual system accomplishes a number of complex tasks, including the reception of light, and the formation of monocular representations; the construction of a binocular perception from a pair of two dimensional projections; the identification and categorization of visual objects; assessing distances to and between objects; and guiding body movements to visual objects. The psychological manifestation of visual information is known as
visual perception.
This article mostly describes the visual system of mammals, although other "higher" animals have similar visual systems. In this case, the visual system consists of
Different species are able to see different parts of the light spectrum; for example, bees can see into the ultraviolet,[1] while pit vipers can accurately target prey with their pit organs, which are sensitive to infrared radiation.[2]
In the second half of the 19th century, many motifs of the nervous system were identified such as the neuron doctrine and brain localisation, which related to the neuron being the basic unit of the nervous system and functional localisation in the brain, respectively. These would become tenets of the fledgling neuroscience and would support further understanding of the visual system.
