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Imperfect optics may be the eye's defence against chromatic blur

Nature volume 417, pages 174–176 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

The optics of the eye cause different wavelengths of light to be differentially focused at the retina. This phenomenon is due to longitudinal chromatic aberration, a wavelength-dependent change in refractive power1. Retinal image quality may consequently vary for the different classes of cone photoreceptors, cells tuned to absorb bands of different wavelengths. For instance, it has been assumed that when the eye is focused for mid-spectral wavelengths near the peak sensitivities of long- (L) and middle- (M) wavelength-sensitive cones, short-wavelength (bluish) light is so blurred that it cannot contribute to and may even impair spatial vision2,3. These optical effects have been proposed to explain the function of the macular pigment4, which selectively absorbs short-wavelength light, and the sparsity of short-wavelength-sensitive (S) cones5. However, such explanations have ignored the effect of monochromatic wave aberrations present in real eyes. Here we show that, when these effects are taken into account, short wavelengths are not as blurred as previously thought, that the potential image quality for S cones is comparable to that for L and M cones, and that macular pigment has no significant function in improving the retinal image.

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Figure 1: MTFs at 550 nm (solid curves) and 450 nm (dotted curves) for two eyes: (1) a theoretical model eye subject to LCA but with no wave aberrations (thin lines) and (2) a real human subject's eye (thick lines).
Figure 2: MTF area.
Figure 3: Polychromatic MTFs computed with a 6-mm pupil for L cones (dashed line), M cones (solid line) and S cones (dotted line) for theoretical model eye with LCA only (a) and three subjects (b, observer 1; c, observer 2; d, observer 3) with measured LCA, TCA and wave aberrations.
Figure 4: Polychromatic MTFs for the theoretical model eye (thin lines) and for one subject (thick lines) with (solid lines) and without (dotted lines) the effect of macular pigment absorption at short wavelengths.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank D. Williams for comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Schepens Eye Research Institute, 20 Staniford Street, Boston, 02114, Massachusetts, USA

    James S. McLellan, Susana Marcos, Pedro M. Prieto & Stephen A. Burns

  2. Instituto de Óptica, Daza de Valdés, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, 28006, Spain

    Susana Marcos

  3. Laboratorio de Optica, Universidad de Murcia, Edificio C, Campus Espinardo, Murcia, 30071, Spain

    Pedro M. Prieto

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  1. James S. McLellan
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Correspondence to James S. McLellan.

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McLellan, J., Marcos, S., Prieto, P. et al. Imperfect optics may be the eye's defence against chromatic blur. Nature 417, 174–176 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/417174a

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