MOMENTARILY AT REST: Scientists believe that an error in visual
processing may help the brain compensate for discrete packets of
information from shifting eyeballs. Image: © ISTOCKPHOTO/SHARON
DOMINICK Whether we are drinking in a scene, picture or vista,
our eyeballs dart about wildly to take in different features of
the view. Previous research determined that eyeballs fix their
gaze on a particular spot for one third to a couple of seconds;
in between glances they dart around for up to 50 milliseconds.
During this shift in attention vision is suppressed and a patch
of momentary blindness occurs. So, with all this frantic
movement (not to mention temporary blindness), how is our brain
able to piece together a complete, detailed, uninterrupted
picture of the world? The answer could lie in a wrinkle of image
processing called "boundary extension," whereby the brain
represents a scene not only by inputted information, such as a
picture, but also by what it extrapolates is beyond the
picture's borders. "The worl