The structure of the Maxwell spot centroid

TL;DR

This paper investigates the structure of Maxwell spot centroids, revealing their relation to the Airy disc pattern caused by diffraction, and how fixation points are optimized in the fovea for acuity.

Contribution

It demonstrates that Maxwell spot centroids are linked to Airy disc diffraction patterns and explains the fixation locus as an area with minimized chromatic dispersion for better acuity.

Findings

Maxwell spot centroids exhibit an Airy disc structure.

Fixation points are located in the blue cone-free foveal area.

The fixation locus optimizes eye acuity by canceling chromatic dispersion.

Abstract

The dark entoptic Maxwell spot centroids seen through a blue filter, which coincide with the blue cone-free areas centered on the foveas, are shown to exhibit a structure. When observing through the green part of a blue-green exchange filter in a foveascope, after a fixation through the blue part, a small orange disc is seen around the centre of the pale green memory afterimage corresponding to the blue cone-free area. Using artificial pupils with different diameters, we show that this small circular pattern corresponds to the Airy disc due to the Fraunhofer diffraction through the pupil. Typically, for an eye with a 3 millimeter diameter pupil, the Airy disc exhibits a diameter of about 8 micrometers at the centre of the usual 100-150 micrometer Maxwell centroid. Fixation tests show that the towering central maximum of the Airy pattern irradiance corresponds to the preferred locus of the fixation of the eye near the centre of the blue cone-free area of the fovea. The locus of fixation in human vision thus appears to be located in the only area of the fovea where the large chromatic dispersion is cancelled, optimising the eye acuity.