Reading uses split focus in the eyes and fusing in the brain

This study looks at how the eyes behave when reading:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070910092543.htm

It explains an observation I first made about 35 years ago, sitting on the rug and watching my family read.

The old assumption was that both eyes look at the same letter at the same time. Speaking as a reader, I had sometimes wondered about that, especially when you read in chunks rather than letter by letter. I felt likeĀ  my eyes weren’t quite together, and when I looked at my parents or brothers reading, especially when I looked from below, their eyes seemed to focus a whisker or two below the page. If they were absorbed and reading fast, their eyes seemed to focus further below the page, like they were physically climbing into the book eyes-first; if they were less intrigued, their focus was nearly exactly on the page.

It turns out that, when reading, the eyes focus a letter or two apart, and that polysyllabic portmanteau words can be read half by one eye and half by the other. The slightly split image is joined in the visual cortex of the brain by a process called fusion.

Fusion combines the slightly different images from each eye in the primary visual cortex, right at the rear of the brain. It serves several purposes: gives us the complexity of 3-dimensional vision; lets us interpret faint images more accurately; and, in reading, it apparently lets us move faster.

Focusing a letter or two, or even half a word, apart, would partly explain why my family’s eyes seemed to be focusing slightly below the page. When they get around to studying avid readers reading avidly, I think they’ll find that the eyes can diverge quite a bit more than a letter or three.

Share

Neuroscientists show how brain responds to sensual caress

Until now, medicos thought that first we perceived touch, then we assigned meaning to it. This study indicates that, in heterosexual men anyway, meaning is assigned to touch at the same moment the touch is perceived.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120604155709.htm#.T84zYXI1EKw.mailto

Fortunately, they do plan on investigating other demographic groups, including other ages, gender and sexual orientations.

I tend to assume that men are hot-wired to respond positively to sensual touch, in a way that seems pretty indiscriminate to many women; and, of course, straight men are socially far less likely to feel all that vulnerable or threatened by those who touch them than most other demographic groups.

It’ll be interesting to see what turns up when they examine the responses of demographic groups with more inflections around tactile sensation. This is an interesting start.

Share