Rods and cones are the two types of photoreceptors in the eye. Imagine that an evil supervillain has the power to damage either only the rods in your eye or the cones in your eye, so that you
would lose the functionality of one type of photoreceptor but retain the other.
1. How would your vision change if rods were selectively damaged by this supervillain?
2. How would it change if cones were damaged instead?
3. Which would you choose to keep-rods or cones and why?
4. Would this choice change if you were a nonhuman animal? (Or, for a more realistic version:
Cone-rod dystrophy is an actual condition in which both photoreceptors in the retina gradually
deteriorate. How would this affect vision? Which symptoms are related to the rods and which to
the cones?)
Respond to TWO peers!
Study Unit: 4.8: The Rods and the Cones: One Eye, Two Types of Vision
Rubrics