English

An optogram from the eye of a rabbit, showing the window it was facing, produced by Wilhelm Kühne in 1878

Noun

optogram ‎(plural optograms)

1. (physiology) An image of external objects fixed on the retina by the photochemical action of light on the visual purple.
   • 1924, John Herbert Parsons, An Introduction to the Study of Colour Vision, page 16,

     The bleaching of visual purple is limited to the area exposed to light, so that an optogram or image of the luminous object, such as a window, can be obtained.

   • 2001, Stanley Finger, Origins of Neuroscience: A History of Explorations Into Brain Function, page 82,

     The study of optograms caught the imagination of the public as well as the scientific community. Some scientifically minded sleuths hoped that the optograms of murder victims might betray their killers!

   • 2006, Andrea Goulet, Optiques: The Science of the Eye and the Birth of Modern French Fiction, page 183,

     What Dantin, Ginory, and Bernardet do not know—that is, the true facts about the killer's identity and the source of Dantin's image—will come not from the material evidence of the optogram, but from the vagaries of chance, as Bernardet's flânerie allows him to stumble on both Dantin's portrait and the true killer himself.

Related terms

• optography

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