Simulating light adaptation in the retina with rod-cone coupling

Abstract

The retina performs various key operations on incoming images in order to facilitate higher-level visual processing. Since the retina outperforms existing image enhancing techniques, it follows that computational simulations with biological plausibility are best suited to inform their design and development, as well as help us better understand retina functionality. Recently, it has been determined that quality of vision is dependant on the interaction between rod and cone pathways, traditionally thought to be wholly autonomous. This interaction improves the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) within the retina and in turn enhances boundary detection by cones. In this paper we therefore propose the first cone simulator that incorporates input from rods. Our results show that rod-cone convergence does improve SNR, therefore allowing for improved contrast sensitivity, and consequently visual perception. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.