Sigrid Diether showed that eyes can compensate refractive errors even in local retinal areas. For this experiment, the chickens were raised with hemi-field lenses. The observation argues against a role of accommodation in the control of eye growth by vision. |
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In her second project, she has set up a large
drum in which the chickens' visual acuity and contrast sensitivity can
be measured.
The head rotation of the chicken while it follows the drifting gratings
is quantified by an image processing software written in C++. She found
that the chickens' contrast sensitivity increased while they were wearing
translucent eye occluders which produce myopia. Contrast sensitivity was
back to normal one hour after occluder removal. She also found that
atropine shifts the contrast sensitivity curve to increased sensitivity
at higher spatial frequencies.
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