ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2015
Perceiving polarization with the naked eye: characterization of human polarization sensitivity.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 68 citations in OpenAlex.
- The spectral, spatial and contrast sensitivity of human polarization pattern perception.Scientific reports · 2017Trial
- Eye Dominance and Testing Order Effects in the Circularly-Oriented Macular Pigment Optical Density Measurements.Ophthalmic & physiological optics : the journal of the British College of Ophthalmic Opticians (Optometrists) · 2026Article
- Considering the Effect of Neural Adaptation in the Estimation of Haidinger's Brush Perceptual Threshold.Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2026Article
- Characterizing the circularly oriented macular pigment using spatiotemporal sensitivity to structured light entoptic phenomena.Journal of vision · 2025Article
- Macular Pigment Assessment in Indian Population Using Degree of Polarization Threshold: Impact of Diet on Macular Pigment Density.Translational vision science & technology · 2024Article
- Measuring the visual angle of polarization-related entoptic phenomena using structured light.Biomedical optics express · 2024Article
- An Overview of Lutein in the Lipid Membrane.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- The Differential Contribution of Macular Pigments and Foveal Anatomy to the Perception of Maxwell's Spot and Haidinger's Brushes.Vision (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Structured light enhanced entoptic stimuli for vision science applications.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Review
- Human psychophysical discrimination of spatially dependant Pancharatnam-Berry phases in optical spin-orbit states.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- The Effect of Age-Related Macular Degeneration on Polarization Pattern Perception.Translational vision science & technology · 2021Article
- Thresholds of polarization vision in octopuses.The Journal of experimental biology · 2021Article
- The Clinical Application of Polarization Pattern Perception.Translational vision science & technology · 2020Article
- Polarization perception in humans: on the origin of and relationship between Maxwell's spot and Haidinger's brushes.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- A different view: sensory drive in the polarized-light realm.Current zoology · 2018Article
- Polarisation vision: overcoming challenges of working with a property of light we barely see.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2018Review
- Celestial polarization patterns sufficient for Viking navigation with the naked eye: detectability of Haidinger's brushes on the sky versus meteorological conditions.Royal Society open science · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Like many animals, humans are sensitive to the polarization of light. We can detect the angle of polarization using an entoptic phenomenon called Haidinger's brushes, which is mediated by dichroic carotenoids in the macula lutea. While previous studies have characterized the spectral sensitivity of Haidinger's brushes, other aspects remain unexplored. We developed a novel methodology for presenting gratings in polarization-only contrast at varying degrees of polarization in order to measure the lower limits of human polarized light detection. Participants were, on average, able to perform the task down to a threshold of 56%, with some able to go as low as 23%. This makes humans the most sensitive vertebrate tested to date. Additionally, we quantified a nonlinear relationship between presented and perceived polarization angle when an observer is presented with a rotatable polarized light field. This result confirms a previous theoretical prediction of how uniaxial corneal birefringence impacts the perception of Haidinger's brushes. The rotational dynamics of Haidinger's brushes were then used to calculate corneal retardance.We suggest that psychophysical experiments, based upon the perception of polarized light, are amenable to the production of affordable technologies for self-assessment and longitudinal monitoring of visual dysfunctions such as age-related macular degeneration.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.