ChepkwonyChatterjee

LED Flicker system design

Background

Human vision science has been generally defined based on the presence of four types of photopigments in the retina: rods and three types of cones. Rods are responsible for peripheral vision under scotopic and mesopic lighting conditions. Rods are generally not associated with color vision. The cones on the other hand are present in the foveal region and are responsible for color vision under photopic conditions. The L,M,S cones are sensitive to different wavelength ranges of light.

There has been a recent discovery [1] of another type of non-rod non-cone photopigment in the human retina, and this is melanopsin present in the specialized ganglion cells of the retina. Melanopsin in the retina has been studied to the extent that its primary function has been determined to be signaling changes in ambient light levels to the brain throughout the day for unconscious visual reflexes, such as pupillary constriction, and regulating a number of daily behavioral and physiological rhythms, collectively called circadian rhythms. It has been suspected that Melanopsin may play some role in the human visual system as well. The role of melanopsin in color vision and temporally varying light intensity patterns is an emerging research area.

To understand the role of Melanopsin in the human visual system, researchers need a setup for conducting psychophysical experiments. The goal of our project was to build such a device which makes it easy to carry out such experiments.

High Level Device Specifications

1. Should be capable of producing 4 or more primary colors.

To test the theory that four color sensitive photopigments (L,M,S cones and melanopsin) contribute to color vision

1. The flicker rate of each primary color should be programmable.

To test the response of varying temporal frequencies of light flicker.

1. The light intensity levels should be adjustable

To allow for variation of lighting conditions to stimulate the photopigments to different levels.

References

Software

Appendix I - Code and Data

Code

File:CodeFile.zip

Data

zip file with my data