There’s a nice short article in The Guardian, reporting on recent research that solves the mystery of why we don’t notice when we blink. The bottom line is
“When the eyes shut, even for a fraction of a second, the visual system of the brain shuts down too. So you cannot know that you are fleetingly in the dark”
There’s a cute experimental setup through which University College London researchers figured this out, and the article does a great job succinctly describing the work in just three paragraphs.
August 3rd, 2005 at 10:35 pm
Just to add onto that – if people are interested in the neurobiological basis of consciousness, with an emphasis on visual perception, they should really check out Christof Koch’s The Quest For Consciousness – it’s super excellent.
Also check out this great color optical illusion. It’s illusion number 3 on the bottom of the webpage.
August 4th, 2005 at 2:43 am
This study was really neat… I have a post discussing it in more detail, as well as possible implications for visual consciousness, here.
August 4th, 2005 at 6:38 am
Great links Travis and Andrew – Thanks!