50th Anniversary special issue of vision research

The inaugural issue of Vision Research was published, with little fanfare, in June 1961 – 50 years ago. In the Preface, Thorn Shipley wrote: ‘‘The lack of a special journal in this field has been found to be increasingly awkward. Vision Research is therefore planned directly to fill this gap. However, it is not intended to encourage the isolation of the eye from the other senses, neither in its physical and chemical aspects, nor in its physiological and psychological ones. Nor does its specialization imply a contrived segregation of the senses in general from the remainder of the organism, or of its science from other areas of human knowledge. Such implications, we hope, will be explicitly avoided by the consistent representation, among the articles published, of the basic concept of the unity of the organic being. Nevertheless, within this framework, the present journal does reflect a concrete orientation prevalent today among a great many scholars and scientists throughout the world.’’ Fifty years on, we believe Vision Research has lived up to Shipley’s vision. Twenty-five years after its inception, Bob Boynton organized a Special Issue to celebrate 25 years of Vision Research. Boynton solicited 19 articles from people who met some rather demanding criteria. ‘‘The authors were to be knowledgeable, productive, and respected scientists who had been contributors to our field throughout the quarter century since the journal was founded, and yet who, despite all this wear and tear, were still active professionally and sympathetic to Vision Research.’’ (Boynton, 1986). To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Vision Research, we invited knowledgeable, productive, and respected scientists who have been contributors to our field throughout the last quarter century, still active professionally and sympathetic to Vision Research as evidenced by having recently published in the journal (adapted from Boynton’s criteria for the 25th anniversary issue). We asked each author to begin by stating the major conceptual questions 25 years ago, and then describe the progress in the last 25 years, ending with the current state of knowledge. Topics were limited to those with major advances in the last 25 years. Our aim was to highlight new knowledge in active areas over the past quarter century, not to cover exhaustively all the areas included in the journal. This is the first of two volumes celebrating 50 years of Vision Research. Each volume consists of 11 outstanding reviews. Westheimer (2011), a pioneer in the field and a former Editorin-chief and Chairman of the Editorial Board of Vision Research, sets the stage by taking the long view over the journal’s entire 50 year history. He looks back at the state of the science and the way it was practiced when the journal began, and at some front-burner issues of the time. How were they attacked? Which questions now are