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Why the Lights Don't Dim When We Blink

posted by janrinok on Thursday January 26 2017, @10:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the someone's-eyes-are-open dept.

charon writes:

Every few seconds, our eyelids automatically shutter and our eyeballs roll back in their sockets. So why doesn't blinking plunge us into intermittent darkness and light?

New research led by UC Berkeley shows that the brain works extra hard to stabilize our vision despite our fluttering eyes.

[...] In a study published today in the online edition of the journal Current Biology, they found that when we blink, our brain repositions our eyeballs so we can stay focused on what we're viewing.

When our eyeballs roll back in their sockets during a blink, they don't always return to the same spot when we reopen our eyes. This misalignment prompts the brain to activate the eye muscles to realign our vision, said study lead author Gerrit Maus, an assistant professor of psychology at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Target Displacements during Eye Blinks Trigger Automatic Recalibration of Gaze Direction. Current Biology, 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.12.029

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  • (Score: 2) by driverless on Friday January 27 2017, @09:38AM

    by driverless (4770) on Friday January 27 2017, @09:38AM (#459395)

    Every few seconds our eyeballs roll back in their sockets? Seriously?

    Your eyes are constantly moving, google "saccade". You don't realise it because your brain makes up stuff to cover up the movements, google "confabulation across saccades". This causes various weird effects, e.g. google "chronostasis". I'm being lazy there and substituting Google for typing up a ton of stuff...

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  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday January 27 2017, @12:53PM

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 27 2017, @12:53PM (#459429) Journal

    Your eyes are constantly moving

    I don't question this at all. It's "Your eyes are constantly rolling back in their sockets" which seems to imply a greater degree of movement than actually occurs.

    There's a video/animation recording of someone blinking in TFA, and sure, her eyes technically do not remain literally fixed with micron precision, but neither do they constantly roll back in their sockets from what I can tell.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @01:49PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @01:49PM (#459444)

      I've before watched myself blink in the mirror and taken video, my eyes sure as hell do not "roll back inside their sockets every time I blink." Your eyes more around a lot but they don't move THAT fast.