Mind Hacks™: Tips & Tools for Using Your Brain by Tom Stafford, Matt Webb Page A
Book: Mind Hacks™: Tips & Tools for Using Your Brain by Tom Stafford, Matt Webb
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Authors: Tom Stafford, Matt Webb
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pattern of fixations over 8 seconds when looking at a face (Matt’s, in this case) 4
End Notes
Gibson, J. J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual
Perception . Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Heatmap image produced by Eyetools Inc. as part of the Poynter
Institute’s Eyetrack III project ( http://www.poynterextra.org/eyetrack2004/ ).
Scanpath produced using BeGaze software from eye movements recorded
with the iView X Hi-Speed system, courtesy of SensoMotoric Instruments GmBH.
Photo of Matt by Dorian Mcfarland. Many thanks to Lizzie Crundall
for creating this scanpath image.
See Also
Eye tracking and visual attention demos and movies from the University of Southern
California ( http://ilab.usc.edu/bu ).
Map Your Blind Spot
Find out how big your visual blind spot is and how your brain fills the hole
so you don’t notice it.
Coating the back of each eye are photoreceptors that catch light and convert it to nerve
impulses to send to the brain. This surface, the retina , isn’t evenly
spread with receptors — they’re densest at the center and sparse in peripheral vision [ See the Limits of Your Vision ] .
There’s also a patch that is completely devoid of receptors; light that falls here isn’t
converted into nerve signals at all, leaving a blind spot in your field of view — or actually
two blind spots, one for each eye.
In Action
First, here’s how to notice your blind spot (later we’ll draw a map to see how big it
is). Close your left eye and look straight at the cross in Figure 2-6 . Now hold the book flat about 10 inches from your
face and slowly move it towards you. At about 6 inches, the black circle on the right of
the cross will disappear, and where it was will just appear grey, the same color as the
page around it.
Figure 2-6. A typical blind spot pattern
You may need to move the book back and forth a little. Try to notice when the
black circle reappears as you increase the distance, then move the book closer again to
hide the circle totally. It’s important you keep your right eye fixed on the cross, as the
blind spot is at a fixed position from the center of vision and you need to keep it still
to find it.
Now that you’ve found your blind spot, use Jeffrey Oristaglio and Paul Grobstein’s
Java applet at the web site Serendip ( http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindspot ; Java) to plot its size.
The applet shows a cross and circle, so, as before, close your left eye, fix your gaze
on the cross, and move your head so that the circle disappears in your blind spot. Then
click the Start button (at the bottom of the applet) and move your cursor around within
the blind spot. While it’s in there, you won’t be able to see it, but when you can (only
just), click, and a dot will appear. Do this a few times, moving the cursor in different
directions starting from the circle each time.
Again, be careful not to move your head, and keep focused on the cross. You’ll end up
with a pattern like Figure 2-7 . The area inside
the ring of dots is your blind spot.
----
Here’s a fun way of playing with your blind spot. In a room of people, close one eye
and focus on your index finger. Pick a victim and adjust where your finger is until your
blind spot makes his head disappear and the background takes its place. Not very
profitable, but fun, and not as obvious as making as if to crush his head between your
thumb and index finger.
— T.S.
----
How It Works
The blind spot for each eye corresponds to a patch on the retina that is empty of
photoreceptors. With no photoreceptors, there’s nothing to detect light and turn it into
information for use by the visual system, hence the blind spot.
Each receptor cell is connected to the brain via a series of cells that aggregate the
signal before reporting it to the brain by an information-carrying fiber called an axon (see The Neuron ). Bizarrely, the part of the
photoreceptor responsible
End Notes
Gibson, J. J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual
Perception . Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Heatmap image produced by Eyetools Inc. as part of the Poynter
Institute’s Eyetrack III project ( http://www.poynterextra.org/eyetrack2004/ ).
Scanpath produced using BeGaze software from eye movements recorded
with the iView X Hi-Speed system, courtesy of SensoMotoric Instruments GmBH.
Photo of Matt by Dorian Mcfarland. Many thanks to Lizzie Crundall
for creating this scanpath image.
See Also
Eye tracking and visual attention demos and movies from the University of Southern
California ( http://ilab.usc.edu/bu ).
Map Your Blind Spot
Find out how big your visual blind spot is and how your brain fills the hole
so you don’t notice it.
Coating the back of each eye are photoreceptors that catch light and convert it to nerve
impulses to send to the brain. This surface, the retina , isn’t evenly
spread with receptors — they’re densest at the center and sparse in peripheral vision [ See the Limits of Your Vision ] .
There’s also a patch that is completely devoid of receptors; light that falls here isn’t
converted into nerve signals at all, leaving a blind spot in your field of view — or actually
two blind spots, one for each eye.
In Action
First, here’s how to notice your blind spot (later we’ll draw a map to see how big it
is). Close your left eye and look straight at the cross in Figure 2-6 . Now hold the book flat about 10 inches from your
face and slowly move it towards you. At about 6 inches, the black circle on the right of
the cross will disappear, and where it was will just appear grey, the same color as the
page around it.
Figure 2-6. A typical blind spot pattern
You may need to move the book back and forth a little. Try to notice when the
black circle reappears as you increase the distance, then move the book closer again to
hide the circle totally. It’s important you keep your right eye fixed on the cross, as the
blind spot is at a fixed position from the center of vision and you need to keep it still
to find it.
Now that you’ve found your blind spot, use Jeffrey Oristaglio and Paul Grobstein’s
Java applet at the web site Serendip ( http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindspot ; Java) to plot its size.
The applet shows a cross and circle, so, as before, close your left eye, fix your gaze
on the cross, and move your head so that the circle disappears in your blind spot. Then
click the Start button (at the bottom of the applet) and move your cursor around within
the blind spot. While it’s in there, you won’t be able to see it, but when you can (only
just), click, and a dot will appear. Do this a few times, moving the cursor in different
directions starting from the circle each time.
Again, be careful not to move your head, and keep focused on the cross. You’ll end up
with a pattern like Figure 2-7 . The area inside
the ring of dots is your blind spot.
----
Here’s a fun way of playing with your blind spot. In a room of people, close one eye
and focus on your index finger. Pick a victim and adjust where your finger is until your
blind spot makes his head disappear and the background takes its place. Not very
profitable, but fun, and not as obvious as making as if to crush his head between your
thumb and index finger.
— T.S.
----
How It Works
The blind spot for each eye corresponds to a patch on the retina that is empty of
photoreceptors. With no photoreceptors, there’s nothing to detect light and turn it into
information for use by the visual system, hence the blind spot.
Each receptor cell is connected to the brain via a series of cells that aggregate the
signal before reporting it to the brain by an information-carrying fiber called an axon (see The Neuron ). Bizarrely, the part of the
photoreceptor responsible
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