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Science 30 July 1965:
Vol. 149. no. 3683, pp. 553 - 555
DOI: 10.1126/science.149.3683.553
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Articles

Visual Resolution and the Diffraction Limit

H. B. Barlow 1

1 Neurosensory Laboratory, School of Optometry, University of California, Berkeley

Movement of a grating behind a fixed aperture can be detected by human subjects when the grating is well below the diffraction limit of the pupil and below acuity measured with stationary gratings. With movement one sees a flicker or ripple at the edges, and it is argued that these edge effects lead to spurious estimates of optical resolution in insects and man.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Flicker Fusion Phenomena: Rapid flicker is attenuated many times over by repeated temporal summation before it is "seen.".
J. Z. Levinson (1968)
Science 160, 21-28
   Abstract »    PDF »
Optics and Visual Physiology.
M. L. Rubin (1967)
Arch Ophthalmol 78, 77-102
   PDF »
Perception by Locusts of Rotated Patterns.
E. T. Burtt and W. T. Catton (1966)
Science 151, 224
   PDF »


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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)