The Belkin RazorVision uses technology previously tested for those with visual impairment to improve video clarity. The device is marketed for home theatre viewers with normal sight. We found it to benefit viewers with visual impairment even with the standard settings, suggesting that the higher enhancement capabilities not accessible from the user interface may benefit this population even mor...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of gravity on the representation and storage of visual orientation information. On earth, measurements of response time and variability for a task of aligning remembered visual stimuli showed a distinct preference for horizontally and vertically oriented stimuli when the body and gravitational axes were aligned. This preference was markedly de...

Human eyes are unique. Unlike other primates whose pupils are masked by a dark sclera, the human eye highlights a dark pupil against a white sclera. Newborn infants look longer at schematic stimuli with three blobs arranged in a face-like configuration – but only if the blobs match the dark-on-light phenotype of the human eye. If a visual preference for faces with human-like eyes is innately sp...

Visual exposure to an object can modulate an observer's degree of preference for it, initially enhancing preference (a 'familiarity preference' regime), and eventually lowering it again (a 'novelty preference' regime). Here we investigate whether there may be a functional advantage to modulating preference in this way. We put forth the simple hypothesis that degree of preference for an object o...