page_title: Peripheral vision
section_title: Characteristics
hierarchical_section_title: Peripheral vision / Characteristics
caption_attribution_description: Hans-Werner Hunziker, (2006) Im Auge des Lesers: foveale und periphere Wahrnehmung - vom Buchstabieren zur Lesefreude [In the eye of the reader: foveal and peripheral perception - from letter recognition to the joy of reading] Transmedia Stäubli Verlag Zürich 2006 ISBN&#160;978-3-7266-0068-6
context_page_description: Peripheral vision, or indirect vision, is vision as it occurs outside the point of fixation, i.e. away from the center of gaze. The vast majority of the area in the visual field is included in the notion of peripheral vision. "Far peripheral" vision refers to the area at the edges of the visual field, "mid-peripheral" vision refers to medium eccentricities, and "near-peripheral", sometimes referred to as "para-central" vision, exists adjacent to the center of gaze.
context_section_description: The loss of peripheral vision while retaining central vision is known as tunnel vision, and the loss of central vision while retaining peripheral vision is known as central scotoma.
  Peripheral vision is weak in humans, especially at distinguishing detail, color, and shape. This is because the density of receptor and ganglion cells in the retina is greater at the center and lowest at the edges, and, moreover, the representation in the visual cortex is much smaller than that of the fovea (see visual system for an explanation of these concepts). The distribution of receptor cells across the retina is different between the two main types, rod cells and cone cells. Rod cells are unable to distinguish color and peak in density in the near periphery (at 18° eccentricity), while cone cell density is highest in the very center, the fovea, and from there declines rapidly (by an inverse linear function).
  Flicker fusion thresholds decline towards the periphery, but do that at a lower rate than other visual functions; so the periphery has a relative advantage at noticing flicker. Peripheral vision is also relatively good at detecting motion (a feature of Magno cells).
  Central vision is relatively weak in the dark (scotopic vision) since cone cells lack sensitivity at low light levels. Rod cells, which are concentrated further away from the fovea, operate better than cone cells in low light.  This makes peripheral vision useful for detecting faint light sources at night (like faint stars).  Because of this, pilots are taught to use peripheral vision to scan for aircraft at night.
  The distinctions between foveal (sometimes also called central) and peripheral vision are reflected in subtle physiological and anatomical differences in the visual cortex. Different visual areas contribute to the processing of visual information coming from different parts of the visual field, and a complex of visual areas located along the banks of the interhemispheric fissure (a deep groove that separates the two brain hemispheres) has been linked to peripheral vision. It has been suggested that these areas are important for fast reactions to visual stimuli in the periphery, and monitoring body position relative to gravity.
caption: Ovals A, B and C show which portions of the chess situation chess masters can reproduce correctly with their peripheral vision. Lines show path of foveal fixation during 5 seconds when the task is to memorize the situation as correctly as possible. Image from[36] based on data by[37]
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