“When you shift your attention from one thing to another, your brain ‘blinks’ between focusing on the two things, researchers report.
“The blinks are short unconscious gaps in visual perception and came as a surprise to the team of psychologists who discovered the phenomenon while studying the benefits of attention.
“‘Attention is beneficial because it increases our ability to detect visual signals even when we are looking in a different direction,’ says Alex Maier, assistant professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, who directed the study.
“‘The ‘mind’s eye blinks’ that occur every time your attention shifts are the sensory processing costs that we pay for this capability.’”
