0. Be very clear on use of terminology. When am I describing the physics of the situation and when am I describing the psychological experience? What are the terms to be used?

1. Know the definition of and the relationship among the terms: radiance, illuminance, luminance, reflectance, and brightness.

2. Understand the basic physics of how and where light rays from an object end up in your eye.

3. Be able to describe the structures of the eye and the retina from the standpoint of a photon entering the eye. Track a photon from when it enters the eye to finally activating a photoreceptor.  What is the function of each of those structures?

4. Where are the photoreceptors located in the retina? How evenly are the photoreceptors distributed in the retina? How likely is a photon to hit a photoreceptor?

5.  What and why do common vision problems like myopia, presbyopia, and cataracts occur?

6. In discussions about brightness, I said that the rule is "the coal is always black; the chalk is always white." Using two objects, like a piece of coal and a piece of chalk, explain what this statement means with respect to illuminance, luminance, and reflectance. Can I predict the amount of brightness if I know how much light energy is coming from an object? (Reminder: What is the definition of brightness?)

7. What is our duplex retina? What is the shape of the dark adaptation curve? What does the notch in the curve mean? What is the Purkinje shift? What is the evidence for having a duplex retina?

8. What does it mean to have a duplex retina, in daily life? Is vision in the daytime the same as vision at night?

9. Understand how "lateral inhibition" works in horseshoe crab vision.  Be able to predict the pattern of effects of different lights on different photoreceptors. 

10. What is the Simultaneous Brightness Contrast Illusion, Mach bands, and the Hermann Grid illusion? Where is the illusion located in the Hermann Grid illusion? Is what we see in the Hermann Grid real or not ?

11. What is the lateral inhibition explanation of the Simultaneous Contrast Illusion. Is it an illusion or is it real? (tricky question).  Where is the illusion in the simultaneous contrast illusion? What does the effect tell us about the function of the visual system?

12. What is the lateral inhibition explanation of the Hermann Grid illusion.  Where is the illusion located in the Hermann Grid illusion? What does the effect tell us about the function of the visual system?

13. What is the issue with pseudo-edges?  How does the system deal with them?

14. What happens when you keep the image on a constant location on the retina? Why does that happen?