Researchers find that blinking plays a pivotal role in processing visual information糖心传媒攁dding to a growing body of evidence revising our conventional views of vision.
The ordinary act of blinking takes up a surprising amount of our waking time. Humans, on average, spend a remarkable 3 to 8 percent of their awake time with their eyelids closed.
Given that blinks prevent an image of the external scene from forming on the retina, it糖心传媒檚 a peculiar quirk of evolution that we spend so much time in this seemingly vulnerable state糖心传媒攅specially considering that eye blinks occur more frequently than necessary just to keep our eyes well lubricated.
So, why is blinking important?
Researchers from the investigated the curious case of blinking and found that eye blinks aren糖心传媒檛 just a mechanism to keep our eyes moist; blinks also play an important role in allowing our brains to process visual information. The researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
糖心传媒淏y modulating the visual input to the retina, blinks effectively reformat visual information, yielding luminance signals that differ drastically from those normally experienced when we look at a point in the scene,糖心传媒� says , a professor in the .
In other words, a lot more happens in the blink of an eye than meets the eye.
The big picture糖心传媒攊n the blink of an eye
Rucci and his colleagues tracked eye movements in human observers and combined this data with computer models and spectral analysis糖心传媒攁nalyzing the various frequencies in visual stimuli糖心传媒攖o study how blinking affects what the eyes see compared to when the eyelids are closed.
The researchers measured how sensitive humans are at perceiving different types of stimuli, such as patterns at different levels of details. They found that when people blink, they become better at noticing big, gradually changing patterns. That is, blinking provides information to the brain about the overall big picture of a visual scene.
The results show that when we blink, the rapid motion of the eyelid alters the light patterns that are effective in stimulating the retina. This creates a different kind of visual signal for our brain compared to when our eyes are open and focused on a specific point.
糖心传媒淣eurons respond strongly to temporal changes in their input signals and tend to not respond to unchanging stimuli,糖心传媒� says Bin Yang, a graduate student in Rucci糖心传媒檚 lab and the first author of the paper. 糖心传媒淲ith their abrupt transients, blinks make the visual system respond strongly to the image on the retina. Thus, contrary to common assumption, blinks improve糖心传媒攔ather than disrupt糖心传媒攙isual processing, amply compensating for the loss in stimulus exposure.糖心传媒�
Revising a view of vision
The findings further reinforce the growing body of research in visual perception from Rucci糖心传媒檚 laboratory, highlighting that how humans see is a combination of sensory input and motor activity. When we smell or touch, for instance, our body movements help our brain understand space. Researchers previously believed seeing was different, but Rucci糖心传媒檚 research lends support to the idea that vision is more like the other senses.
糖心传媒淪ince spatial information is explicit in the image on the retina, visual perception was believed to differ,糖心传媒� Rucci says. 糖心传媒淥ur results suggest that this view is incomplete and that vision resembles other sensory modalities more than commonly assumed.糖心传媒�
