The term visual field is sometimes used as a
synonym to
field of view, though they do not designate the same thing. The visual field is the "spatial array of visual sensations available to observation in
introspectionist psychological experiments" (J. Smythies
[1]), while field of view "refers to the physical objects and light sources in the external world that impinge the
retina". In other words, field of view is everything that (at a given time) causes light to fall onto the retina. This input is processed by the
visual system, which computes the visual field as the output.
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