"Microsaccades" Help To Refresh Your Field of View

Ponca City, We love you writes with news of research from the Salk Institute into small, unconscious eye movements called "microsaccades," the purpose of which has been in question for many years. A recent study showed that those movements were essentially responsible for maintaining a coherent image for interpretation by the brain. They are also the cause of a famous optical illusion in which a still image appears to move. '"Because images on the retina fade from view if they are perfectly stabilized, the active generation of fixational eye movements by the central nervous system allows these movements to constantly shift the scene ever so slightly, thus refreshing the images on our retina and preventing us from going 'blind,'" explains Hafed. "When images begin to fade, the uncertainty about where to look increases the fluctuations in superior colliculus activity, triggering a microsaccade," adds Krauzlis.'"

Comments

Re:how is this new?

[ScrewMaster]

What's funny is, as I was concentrating on reading the last paragraph of your post, I was focusing on each word as I read it. Something seemed strange as I read, so I read it again, this time pausing for several seconds before moving to the next word.

Having already read the paragraph, I knew what it said. There was no sense of urgency in my mind, nothing to influence whatever part of my brain causes saccades to refresh my field of view so I could read the next word.

I could see each word very clearly when I first focused on it. By the time I moved my focus the the next word, I saw mostly gray.

Try it. Read this post a couple times, comprehend it, then focus on each word, individually, for several seconds.

Funny, for an instant I thought your post had some actual content, but for some reason all I can see now is the word "fnord" repeated over and over.