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| Cats can't clearly focus on objects that are more than 20 feet away |
How does the world look to you? Beautiful right? Have you ever wondered how the world looks like to your cat? We speak of the bird’s-eye view and use fish-eye lenses to make things look weird.But we rarely consider how the internet’s favorite subject sees the world. Luckily, artist Nickolay Lamm
has volunteered to act as cat-vision conduit. Here, Lamm presents his
idea of what different scenes might look like if you were a cat, taking
into consideration the way feline eyes work, and using input from
veterinarians and ophthalmologists.
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Cats' color vision is less vibrant than humans', a result of different densities of photoreceptors in their retinas
For starters, cats’ visual fields are broader than ours, spanning
roughly 200 degrees instead of 180 degrees, and their visual acuity
isn’t as good. So, the things humans can sharply resolve at distances of
100-200 feet look blurry to cats, which can see these objects at
distances of up to 20 feet. That might not sound so great, but there’s a
trade-off: Because of the various photoreceptors
parked in cats’ retinas, they kick our asses at seeing in dim light.
Instead of the color-resolving, detail-loving cone cells that populate
the center of human retinas, cats (and dogs) have many more rod cells,
which excel in dim light and are responsible for night-vision
capability. The rod cells also refresh more quickly, which lets cats
pick up very rapid movements — like, for example, the quickly shifting
path a marauding laser dot might trace.
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| Cats can see much better in dim light than humans can |
Lastly, cats see colors differently than we do, which is why the
cat-versions of these images look less vibrant than the people-versions.
Scientists used to think cats were dichromats — able to only see two
colors — but they’re not, exactly. While feline photoreceptors are most
sensitive to wavelengths in the blue-violet and greenish-yellow ranges,
it appears they might be able to see a little bit of green as well. In
other words, cats are mostly red-green color blind, as are many of us,
with a little bit of green creeping in.
Care to see more of these comparative photos? Then Click here
Source : www.wired.com
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