Abstract
The idea that, through evolution, an animal’s visual system becomes adapted so as to maximize the detection and recognition of stimulus objects that are important to its survival is, of course, an old one. This is, however, only one of the factors affecting the efficacy of vision. Animals are themselves stimuli to other animals, and their shape and colour, also modified through evolution, are often such as to greatly reduce the probability of their being detected (camouflage), while on other occasions, such as in aposematic colouring or aggressive and mating displays, they serve to make the animal conspicuous. The environment in which the receptor and stimulus lie is a third factor that has a strong effect on vision, (1) by acting as a transmission channel between stimulus and detector, (2) by providing the illumination, of variable intensity, spectral quality and directional distribution, by which the stimulus is seen, and (3) by also providing the background against which the stimulus appears. The fishes form a particularly good group for the study of the interrelationships and mutual adaptations that occur between stimulus, environment, and detector, because their visual environments are very variable, resulting in their being exposed to a wide variety of visual tasks and having a correspondingly wide range of visual adaptations.
Keywords
- Modulation Transfer Function
- Visual Pigment
- High Spatial Frequency
- Body Colour
- Chromatic Aberration
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Muntz, W.R.A. (1990). Stimulus, environment and vision in fishes. In: Douglas, R., Djamgoz, M. (eds) The Visual System of Fish. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0411-8_15
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