
Humans time blinks so they don't miss information - nreece
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/5925932/Humans-time-blinks-so-they-dont-miss-information.html
======
HeyLaughingBoy
This is pretty well known already: in Kendo, students are taught to monitor
our opponent and attack when he blinks. Likewise, you need to be aware of your
own blink and be prepared to defend yourself when you do.

~~~
Dilpil
That doesn't really sound like great advice. Human reaction time is about
200ms (<http://getyourwebsitehere.com/jswb/rttest01.html> if you wish to
verify this for yourself), whereas the blink duration is 100 to 150 ms. By the
time you reacted the blink would be over.

~~~
jdburdette
If you see him blink and react, then he only has 50 ms to react to your
attack, which you just stated is not enough time.

~~~
Dilpil
Yes, it would be advantageous to begin your attack during an opponent's blink.
However, the blink is faster than your reaction time. If you see him blink and
react, his blink is over before you react. His eyes are open when your attack
begins.

------
tomerico
I wonder why evolution hasn't made it possible to blink with each eye
separately, so that no information is lost.

~~~
wglb
Now that is really an interesting question.

I wonder if blinking with one eye would be disruptive to the sterovision that
is going on. An interesting test would be to train oneself to blink one eye at
a time.

~~~
mahmud
I think you answered yourself: stereovision support. The mental context-switch
needed to go from stereo to mono to stereo again is probably more expensive
than just going from stereo to nothing and back to stereo. I just tried it and
closing one eye at a time made me sorta dizy.

(disclaimer: not a trained eyetician ;-)

------
bgutierrez
Dr Tamami Nakano should monitor people playing Guitar Hero, and watch how
infrequently they blink their eyes.

~~~
gojomo
My first thought was: well of course, this is just like timing your 'reloads'
in various shooter games (where you point offscreen and fire to reload).

------
woodsier
It always amazes me how _we_ control our body for the most part, and yet so
much of it remains a mystery.

~~~
unalone
I know, right? Every time I read something new about the human body, I'm
struck with this thought like, "Wow, I'm really awesome and I never knew it."

------
marze
Stories like this make me think of Haldane quote:

"I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising
than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not
only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."

------
tvon
You've been blinking all your life, I'd think it obvious that on a
subconscious level you would learn to time those blinks to come at the most
opportune times.

------
clistctrl
It was hard to read the article, as I concentrated so hard on my own blinking.

