{"id":703,"date":"2016-07-01T15:23:27","date_gmt":"2016-07-01T13:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iristech.co\/?p=703"},"modified":"2023-03-23T19:33:26","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T17:33:26","slug":"blink-detection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iristech.co\/blink-detection\/","title":{"rendered":"Blink Detection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Do We Blink?<\/h2>\n

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In reality, the proverbial “blink of an eye” lasts only a tenth of a second, but that’s all the time needed to clear away dust particles and spread lubricating fluids across the eyeball.<\/p>\n

Every time you blink, your eyelids spread a cocktail of oils and mucoussecretions across the surface of the eye to keep your globes from drying out.Blinking also keeps eyes safe from potentially damaging stimuli, such as bright lights and foreign bodies like dust.<\/p>\n

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So why don’t you notice the world plunging into darkness every two to ten seconds? Scientists have found that the human brain has a talent for ignoringthe momentary blackout.<\/p>\n

The very act of blinking suppresses activity in several areas of the brain responsible for detecting environmental changes, so that you experience the world as continuous.<\/p>\n

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Researches on blinking<\/h2>\n

We all blink. A lot. The average person blinks some 12-15 times per minute\u2014 so frequently that our eyes are closed for roughly 10% of our waking hours overall.<\/p>\n

Although some of this blinking has a clear purpose \u2014 mostly to lubricate the eyeballs, and occasionally protect them from dust or other debris \u2014 scientists say that we blink far more often than necessary for these functions alone. Thus, blinking is physiological riddle.<\/p>\n

Why do we do it so darn often? In a paper<\/a> published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of scientists from Japan offers up ananswer to this \u2014 that briefly closing our eyes might actually help us to gather our thoughts and focus attention on the world around us.<\/p>\n

The researchers came to the hypothesis after noting an interesting fact revealed by previous research on blinking: that the exact moments when we blink aren\u2019tactually random. Although seemingly spontaneous, studies have revealed that people tend to blink at predictable moments.<\/p>\n

For someone reading, blinking often occurs after each sentence is finished, while for a person listening to a speech, it frequently comes when the speaker pauses between statements. A group of people all watching the same video tend to blink around the same time, too, when action briefly lags.<\/p>\n

As a result, the researchers guessed that we might subconsciously use blinks as a sort of mental resting point, to briefly shut off visual stimuli and allow us tofocus our attention.<\/p>\n

To test the idea, they put 10 different volunteers in an fMRI machine and had them watch the TV show \u201cMr. Bean\u201d (they had used the same show in their previous work on blinking, showing that it came at implicit break points in the video). They then monitored which areas of the brain showed increased or decreased activity when the study participants blinked.<\/p>\n

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Their analysis showed that when the Bean-watchers blinked, mental activitybriefly spiked in areas related to the default network, areas of the brain that operate when the mind is in a state of wakeful rest, rather than focusing on the outside world.<\/p>\n

Momentary activation of this alternate network, they theorize, could serve as a mental break, allowing for increased attention capacity when the eyes are opened again.<\/p>\n

To test whether this mental break was simply a result of the participants visual inputs being blocked, rather than a subconscious effort to clear their minds, the researchers also manually inserted \u201cblackouts\u201d into the video at random intervals that lasted roughly as long as a blink.<\/p>\n

In the fMRI data, though, the brain areas related to the default network weren\u2019tsimilarly activated. Blinking is something more than temporarily not seeing anything.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s far from conclusive, but the research demonstrates that we do enter some sort of altered mental state when we blink \u2014 we\u2019re not just doing it to lubricateour eyes. A blink could provide a momentary island of introspective calm in the ocean of visual stimuli that defines our lives.<\/p>\n

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Why you should blink more?<\/h2>\n

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Ever find that your eyes have an irritated “scratchy” feeling after a long sessionusing the computer? A relatively normal blink rate is 12-15 blinks per minute, but computer users tend to blink much less frequently, more typically around4-5 blinks per minute. Why?<\/p>\n

The eyes normally jump around the screen in pattern called a “saccade.” Blinkingdisrupts this pattern and lowers productivity for someone concentrating on an intense visual task, especially when under deadline to get a big project done.Blink less and you get more done… but it can take a toll on your eyes.<\/p>\n

A dry, scratchy sensation is a common symptom of dry eyes. Interestingly, insome cases, computer users actually suffer watery eye symptoms due to the fact that the eyes are irritated but the reduced blink rate doesn’t spread thetears effectively.<\/p>\n

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The 3 types of tears<\/h2>\n

Before I start to explain about the 3 types of tears I want to share with you thisvideo. It’s about a girl named Iris. Sounds familiar?<\/p>\n