Eli5 why do we see things in the corners of our eyes when there’s nothing really there?
In: Biology
Vision in the peripheral is built to detect movement, your brain interprets input and this is what you “see”, especially related to danger. From time to time, a specific set of inputs are mistaken for something else and you then “see” something out of the corner of your eye which is in effect a prediction that later proves false.
If your visual cortex even gets a WHISPER of a stimuli on the edges of your visual field (where it is the weakest) it’ll create motion to prompt other parts of your brain (e.g. motor cortex, amygdala etc.) just in case it wasn’t nothing and was actually an ENTIRE BEAR THAT SOMEHOW SNUCK UP ON YOU.
Thank god you have a nervous system that is crackhead level twitchy because that tendency to jerk and look and see little things on the corner of your vision just saved you from being eaten by that bear. 🙂
The Brain fills in for gaps in our vision and eyes are kind of glitchy to begin with.
So you end up with cases where you’ve got floaters in your eyes, one moves right into your blindspot where the nerve connects to the eyeball, and you’re brain makes a guess at what that was.
Latest Answers