tech:
the equipment used in vision science
MONOCHROMATOR
The monochromator is a device which emits light of a specific wavelength and no other. Here you can see green light from the monochromator hitting the folded up cloth.
This device is useful for capturing information about the reflectance of physical surfaces, and for calibrating visual recording devices such as cameras.
SPECTRORADIOmeter
The spectroradiometer will record the spectral power distribution (spectra) of light at one point. This is what you would find out if you measured a surface with the monochromator at each wavelength in turn, the spectroradiometer will record this in one go.
HYPERSPECTRAL CAMERA
The hyperspectral camera will capture the spectra of every pixel in a scene in one reading, effectively doing the job of the spectroradiometer taking a grid of readings across a whole scene.
This device is useful for research into the visual diet, as it is able to record a rich dataset representing the diversity of colour information across a scene.
ANOMALOSCOPE
This device is used to identify people with anomalous colour vision. Through the eyepiece, the user views a circle which they must adjust the colours of until they look exactly the same. The colour of one half is a monochromatic light which will appear the same to all observers, and the colour of the other half is a mixture of wavelengths which will appear different to people with different forms of colour vision. We can identify from the mixture that they choose as a match, which colour vision type they posess.
