Eye blinks as a visual processing stage

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Yang, Bin; Intoy, Janis; Rucci, Michele
• 署名单位: University of Rochester; University of Rochester
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-12610
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2310291121
• 发表日期: 2024-04-09
• 关键词: luminance resolution; digital displays; reflex blinking; ocular surface; movements; DYNAMICS; suppression; voluntary; lubrication; perception

摘要

Humans blink their eyes frequently during normal viewing, more often than it seems necessary for keeping the cornea well lubricated. Since the closure of the eyelid disrupts the image on the retina, eye blinks are commonly assumed to be detrimental to visual processing. However, blinks also provide luminance transients rich in spatial information to neural pathways highly sensitive to temporal changes. Here, we report that the luminance modulations from blinks enhance visual sensitivity. By coupling high -resolution eye tracking in human observers with modeling of blink transients and spectral analysis of visual input signals, we show that blinking increases the power of retinal stimulation and that this effect significantly enhances visibility despite the time lost in exposure to the external scene. We further show that, as predicted from the spectral content of input signals, this enhancement is selective for stimuli at low spatial frequencies and occurs irrespective of whether the luminance transients are actively generated or passively experienced. These findings indicate that, like eye movements, blinking acts as a computational component of a visual processing strategy that uses motor behavior to reformat spatial information into the temporal domain.