Subliminal Thoughts or Unconscious Flicks?
Your eyes are constantly moving. Even when your eyes are fixated on something, they are still flickering back and forth. However, these movments are imperceivable to us. The largest of these flicks are called microsaccades and the smallest are called tremors. Originally, scientists thought that microsaccades actually impaired vision, and in 1980 University of Maryland Steinman concluded that microsaccades were "merely a kind of nervous tic." However, a group of scientists have determined that microsaccades are actually essential to good vision.
The first argument is that these fixational eye movements keep your vision from fading.Animals are stimulated by movement. Frogs, for instance, cannot see a fly that is still, but once the fly moves the frog immediatley reacts to eat the fly. The frog cannot see the unmoving fly, because their microsaccades have slowed down. The fading of these objects is called adaption. The Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix conducted a test where they asked a group of volunteers to fixate on a small spot while releasing or pressing a button to indicate when they perceived a peripheral target. The scientists measured each individual's fixational eye movements on a high-precision video system. The data, which was published in 2006, revealed that the microsaccades decreased in speed and size as the target vanished, but increased in speed and size right before the target reappeared. This proved that the lack of microsaccades leads to adaption and fading.
The second argument takes into consideration eye diseases. A lack of fixational movements occur in people with a "lazy eye", and is the leading cause of vision loss in people ages 20-70 years old.
Also, psychologists now have research that suggests that microsaccades reveal your subliminal thoughts. Neurologist Ralf Engbert of the University of Potsdam in Germany published research in 2003 that when an object of interest appeared in someone's peripherals their microsaccades decreased rapidly and then shot up to a frequency above normal. This also suggests that sudden changes in movement can draw our attention without us actually looking at the cause of the change.
My Opinion: I found it really interesting that microsaccades are basicaly like a continuing "refocus" method. Also, the thought about them revealing our thoughts and desires is why I chose this article. What would happen if people could eventually decipher these movements and read are minds? However, they don't really reveal our thoughts as much as they are constantly reminding our brains about what is around us. This article brought a new meanig to the phrase "your eyes are the window of your soul."
posted by Joy S. @ 5:52 PM
4 Comments:
The idea of eyes revealing our feelings is interesting. If you ever watch a film when someone stares at someone they tend to move their eyes back and forth to observe the whole face. It is interesting how these things work. Personally sometimes I will focus on something even when I close my eyes because it instinctually is programmed to look around. It is a lot like how our muscles move constantly. It is all pretty interesting.
I think that it is interesting to think that our eyes are constantly moving and refocusing. I also find it interesting that we can control our eyes and look at something and at the same time we cannot control the constaint movement of our eyes. I also find it fascinating how when something of interest is in someones visual field that it effects their migrosaccades even if they are not even looking at the object. What i found most fascinating about the article was the idea that our subliminal thoughts could be shown through microsaccades.Does this mean that they will be able to see our thoughts that are intense enough to influence the mental processes and our behavior?
I think that it is interesting to think that our eyes are constantly moving and refocusing. I think that it is also interesting that we can control where we look and at the same time we cannot control the microsaccades. The idea that when something of interest comes into our field of vision it effects our microsaccades without us knowing it is very interesting. I think that the most interesting thing about this article was the idea that our subliminal thoughts could be shown through microsaccades.
I think our eyes have to be moving and blinking constantly. Blinking is what helps keep our eyes from going out of focused. It is cool that we don't even know we are blinking sometimes. Our eyes do show our emotion, but i hope that they never find a way to read our thoughts.
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