Field of view - Definition and Overview

Your field of view is that part of the observable world that you are able to see at any given moment.

Different animals have different fields of view, depending on the placement of the eyes. Humans have a 180-degree forward-facing field of view, while some birds have a complete 360-degree field of view. In addition the vertical range of the field of view may vary.

The range of visual abilities is not uniform across a field of view, and varies from animal to animal. For example, binocular vision, which is important for depth perception, only covers 140 degrees of the field of vision in humans; the remaining peripheral 40 degrees have no binocular vision (because of the lack of overlap in the images from either eye for those parts of the field of view). The afore-mentioned birds would have a scant 10 or 20 degrees of binocular vision.

Similarly, color vision and the ability to perceive motion and shape vary across the field of view; in humans the former is concentrated in the center of the visual field, while the latter tends to be much stronger in the periphery. This is due to the much higher concentration of color-sensitive cone cells in the macula, the central region of the retina, as compared to the higher concentration of motion-sensitive rod cells in the periphery. Since cone cells require considerably brighter light sources to be activated, the result of this distribution is that peripheral vision is relatively much stronger at night.

Visual fields

Different neurological difficulties cause characteristic forms of visual disturbances, illustrated below.

See also

• peripheral vision
• visual perception
• angle of view