We introduce our recent research concerning a convergence and accommodation system using a binocular wavefront sensor, from basic and clinical standpoints, as a microscopic view of ophthalmic optics. We also introduce the clinical application of an adaptive optics fundus camera from a microscopic view. For the view-point of macroscopic ophthalmic optics, we introduce methods of rehabilitation after retinal prosthesis implantation. Research on ophthalmic optics depends upon the microscopic point of view to improve image resolution, with the development of computers and devices such as the photodiode, and upon the macroscopic point of view to reveal the visual system using the methodology of neuroscience.

Using the Science Citation Index (Web of Science, Thomson Reuters), we retrieved 471,283 journal articles on vision science published over the past 30 years and performed bibliometric and citation analysis. Research areas in computer science and neuroimaging technology emerged in the 1990’s to join a diverse group of traditional basic and clinical visual sciences. Major research topics included higher-order cortical activities for visual perception, attention, tracking and motion in biological vision science; visual recognition and machine-visualization interface in computer vision science, and visual aging in clinical vision science. The most frequently cited articles or citation classics provided the current research trends. In recent decades, the increasing contribution of the People’s Republic of China, South Korea, Turkey, India and Brazil, is remarkable.

Protanopes and deuteranopes use red and green color names in their everyday lives, although they retrospectively lack L cones or M cone in the retina, so cannot discriminate colors in the red-green direction. In this study, we carried out categorical color naming experiments under restricted stimulus-presenting conditions, in order to explore the visual cues dichromats use in performing trichromat-like categorical color naming. It was shown that when the dichromats observed real color chips, they could perform trichromat-like categorical color naming, whereas use of a monitor to present color stimuli, and small-field or brief duration, degraded their performance. Furthermore, when the stimuli were presented in equal-luminance condition, the subjects completely confused color names in the redgreen direction. These results clearly indicate that dichromats utilize the luminance (lightness) of color chips as a critical visual cue in performing trichromat-like categorical color naming.