In medical research, fluorescent materials are injected into the body so that they can be used to image defects or conditions in the eye. Often the amount of fluorescence is measured over time.
Naturally occurring proteins in the eye also fluoresce and this is called autofluorescence. Autofluorescence is the phase shifting of light usually from UV light to visible light and has been measured in every part of the eye. The reason this becomes important to visual dyslexics is that when the photon of visible light is emitted, it is no longer on its original path so when it is detected it becomes a misleading piece of visual information.
Dyslexia researchers in the past who were looking for a visual mechanism for dyslexia either looked at the eye or the visible spectrum for the answer. Both UV and IR light are outside the visible spectrum and known to cause autofluorescence. The association was never made that the visual noise caused by phase shifting photons inside the eye may have contributed to the cause of visual dyslexia.
It does seem reasonable that the role of nonvisible light has been disregarded in the past as not affecting the vision of the dyslexic. After all, why would nonvisible light be a problem?
The reality is that the autofluorescence of naturally occurring proteins in almost all parts of the eye has the ability to phase shift photons of nonvisible light into photons of visible light that no longer have their original path and cause what I call visual noise.
It is not yet clear on whether the visual dyslexic is more sensitive to the visual noise or actually has a higher amount of autofluorescent proteins causing more noise or a combination of both. While it might be nice to know the answer to that, the See Right Dyslexia Glasses remove the problems due to autofluorescence by filtering out the UV and IR light that causes the autofluorescence.
There are a couple of naturally occurring examples of fluorescence or bio luminescence that some people might have seen. Lightning bugs or fireflies are one example. The light of the fireflies is caused by a chemical reaction. There are also some small sea animals that glow in the breaking waves or cause footprints to glow for a short time in the sand at the beach. Their light has a kinetic cause where the energy comes from movement.
Back in the 1960's there were posters that were designed to be viewed in low light given off by UV or so called black lights. Their pigments were able to phase shift the UV light into visible light and cause the poster to glow in low light conditions. They were called day glow posters.
The mechanism exhibited by the day glow poster is actually the most similar to what is causing some of the problems in the visual dyslexic's eye. It is the random nature of this taking place in the eye and causing visual noise that completes the picture of why autofluorescence causes some of the visual dyslexic's problems.
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