The strange application of the eyelid that you did not know!
Blinking happens every few seconds without even thinking about it; Of course, except when you want to stare somewhere for a while. Tears will well up in your eyes as you resist blinking, and when you finally do, you will find a sweet peace. With the momentary closing of the eyelids, your eyes are immersed in a liquid.
According to Khabar Online, but blinking is more than wetting the eyes. A new study by researchers shows that blinking helps vision in a strange way. This study is the latest in a series of research studies trying to determine exactly what blinking does for us; Because we do it more than necessary to lubricate the eyes.
“We show that blinking increases the strength of retinal stimulation, and this effect dramatically increases our vision despite the time lost to seeing external scenes,” University of Rochester neuroscientist Ben Young and his colleagues write in their paper.
Previous research has shown that, in addition to refreshing our attention and helping us recognize different objects, blinking also breaks down the endless stream of visual and auditory information into small chunks for processing.
Every time we blink, we lose our vision in short blackouts of 300 milliseconds; Even if we don't notice it happening. You might expect such a break to shut down the activity of neurons that respond to visual input; But maybe not in a positive way.
A 2016 study surprisingly found that although neural activity decreases when the eyelids are closed; But it returns to a higher level immediately after blinking, and for this reason, it is thought that blinking improves vision.
Following on from other researchers' findings, in their recent study, Yang and colleagues used high-resolution eye tracking to examine visual blinking in 12 subjects. These 12 people watched images with different contrast on the screen.
Blinking increases the strength of the visual input signal
Since both eyes blink together, only one eye was tracked in this study, and the researchers also recorded the light intensity, or luminance, of the participants' visual inputs. In relation to the periods during which people remained fixed on the screen, the researchers concluded that blinking increases the strength of visual input signals by modulating the intensity of light falling on the retina.
The researchers observed visual enhancement both when the participants were told to blink and when they did so unconsciously. Contrary to previous research that showed that only real blinking improved attention, not simulated blinking, this study showed that voluntary blinking also momentarily enhanced vision with changes in luminance.
“Rather than impairing visual processing as hypothesized, blinking enhances sensitivity,” Yang and colleagues write in their report. In addition, researchers found that blinking helps correct visual information; Just like other eye movements we are unaware of (ultra-fast saccades and eye drifts), they shape vision by adding spatial markers and timestamps to the video that is our vision.
Considering that we spend almost 10% of our waking hours blinking with our eyes closed, it is better to at least know that this happens for a very good reason.
The results of the study have been published in the journal PNAS.
