Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2021 Jan;47(1):1-12. doi: 10.1037/xhp0000864. Epub 2020 Nov 19.
Eye blinks strongly attenuate visual input, yet we perceive the world as continuous. How this visual continuity is achieved remains a fundamental and unsolved problem. A decrease in luminance sensitivity has been proposed as a mechanism but is insufficient to mask the even larger decrease in luminance because of blinks. Here we put forward a different hypothesis: visual continuity can be achieved through shortening of perceived durations of the sensory consequences of blinks. Here we probed the perceived durations of the blackouts caused by blinks and visual stimuli interrupted by blinks. We found that the perceived durations of blackouts because of blinks are about half as long as artificial blackouts immediately preceding or following the blink. Stimuli interrupted by blinks were perceived as briefer than uninterrupted stimuli, by about the same duration as the interruption-but so were stimuli interrupted by optically simulated blinks. There was a difference between real and simulated blinks, however: The decrease in perceived duration depended on the duration of the interruption for simulated, but not for real, blinks. These profound modifications in time perception during blinks show a way in which temporal processing contributes to the solution of an essential perceptual problem. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
眨眼强烈地减弱了视觉输入，但我们仍能感知到连续的世界。这种视觉连续性是如何实现的仍然是一个基本的未解决的问题。有人提出亮度敏感度降低是一种机制，但由于眨眼，它不足以掩盖亮度的更大降低。在这里，我们提出了一个不同的假设：通过缩短眨眼引起的感官后果的感知持续时间，可以实现视觉连续性。在这里，我们探测了由眨眼和被眨眼打断的视觉刺激引起的黑屏的感知持续时间。我们发现，由于眨眼而导致的黑屏的感知持续时间大约是眨眼前或后的人为黑屏的一半。被眨眼打断的刺激比未被打断的刺激被感知为更短，大约与中断的持续时间相同——但被光学模拟的眨眼打断的刺激也是如此。然而，真实的和模拟的眨眼之间存在差异：对于模拟的眨眼，感知持续时间的减少取决于中断的持续时间，但对于真实的眨眼则不是。这些在眨眼过程中时间感知的深刻变化表明，时间处理有助于解决一个基本的感知问题。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2020 APA，保留所有权利）。
