Abstract

A key optical parameter of the retina is the cone aperture, which determines the ability of single cone photoreceptors to collect photons. The cone aperture is difficult to measure anatomically in part because of the possibility of histological artifact and also because it is not clear how the functional aperture relates to the physical dimensions of the photoreceptor, such as the diameter of the inner segment. I will describe some psychophysical experiments performed in collaboration with Walter Makous, Donald MacLeod, and Bing Chen (Chen et al., in press; MacLeod et al., 1992) that provide new estimates of the cone aperture in the living human eye.

© 1993 Optical Society of America