The College of Optometry celebrated Fechner Day on October 23rd, 2015. This is the 14th year the College has been able to bring in a speaker near the “official” Fechner Day of October 22nd. It features a speaker who has a psychophysics interest and someone who also has a broader interest across disciplines. It begins with a brief overview of Gustav Fechner’s life followed by the invited presenter.
The invited speaker was Dr. Angela Brown from The Ohio State College of Optometry whose talk was titled “Visual Sensitivity of the Human Infant”. Dr. Brown reviewed the results of behavioral and noninvasive electrophysiological experiments, both with simple light flashes, sine wave gratings, and white-noise stimuli. These experiments as a group demonstrated that the critical immaturities of 2 -- 4-month-olds lie early in the visual system, perhaps as early as in the retina. Dr. Brown also gave insight to new testing for the clinical measurement of visual sensitivity that may reveal visual disorders in newborn infants.
The lecture brought in more than 100 faculty, Optometry students, undergraduates, and graduate students from across the campus community. The tradition of an informal meet and greet with the speaker along with German chocolate cake was also continued.
The support of many behind the scenes for the success of this lecture series should also be acknowledged including Dean Davis as well as Maria Ahrens, Nick Palisch, and Janice White in planning, advertising, and arranging travel.