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Cons And Cone Cones Analysis

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The visual system contains two types of photoreceptors, the rods and the cones. These two receptors are easily distinguishable from one another based on their individual shapes, which also gives them their names. They also differ in the type of photopigments they each contain, in the way they are diffused across the retina, and by the variances between their synaptic associations (Purves, Augustine, Fitzpatrick, Katz, LaMantia, McNamara & Williams, 2001). Rods are found in the periphery of the eye and react to faint light, for example black and white, which allows the visual system to process twilight vision. Cones, on the other hand, are located primarily in the fovea and they respond to brighter lights, allowing for the ability to see things in color and are accountable for daylight vision. …show more content…

The rods, in contrast, are all identical to one another (Purves et al., 2001). At the lower intensities of light, only the rods are activated. However, as the amount of light entering the eye increases, so does the activity of the cones, ultimately influencing what an individual can see (Purves et al., 2001). Photopigments, which are found in both rods and cones within the retina, respond to light through a chemical process that releases energy. In order to detect varying levels of light, “photopigments consist of 11-cis-retinal (a derivative of vitamin A) bound to proteins called opsins, which modify the photopigments’ sensitivity to different wavelengths of light. Light converts 11-cis-retinal to all-trans-retinal, thus releasing energy that activates second messengers within the cell” (Kalat, 2013, p. 159). The photopigments are responsible for initiating the first steps of communication within visual system when levels of light are first

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