双语 | 为何我们没有意识到自己在眨眼？
Why Don't We Notice We're Blinking?
为何我们没有意识到自己在眨眼？
We blink about 15 times each minute, sometimes in response to something, like going from a dark room into light. But most times, we blink for no reason at all — it's an involuntary response. So why don't we notice we've lost visual connection for a millisecond? That's what scientists wanted to discover.
我们平均每分钟眨眼15次，有时候是应激反应，例如从一个黑漆漆的房子走到光亮处。但多数时候，我们毫无缘由的眨眼，这是一种不由自主的行为。为什么我们不会注意到在一毫秒的时间内我们失去了视觉感应呢？这是科学家想要弄清楚的问题。
For most people, eyesight is the dominant sense. In fact, about 30 percent of neurons in the cerebral cortex dictate vision, as compared to 8 percent for touch. But for a short time during every minute of your waking life, you're missing out on all that visual information when you blink. When you open your eyes after each blink, it's as if nothing changed. So why does the world appear so seamless even when your sight is disrupted every few seconds?
对大部分人而言，视力是最主要的知觉。实际上，大脑皮层30%的神经元是用来控制视力的，只有8%是用来控制触觉的。但在你醒着的时候，每分钟都有一小段时间，你因为眨眼而错过所有视觉信息。每次眨眼之后，你睁开眼睛，好像一切都没变。虽然每隔几秒钟，你的视线就会断开，但是眼前的世界为什么看起来毫无中断的感觉呢？
Researchers at the University of Illinois conducted three experiments, each involving 16 students with normal vision, to figure out why the world seems continuous across eye blinks. In each experiment, a blue letter "A" was projected on a screen, while an eyetracker recorded eye blinks (in this case, voluntary ones).
伊利诺伊大学的研究者进行了三组实验，每一组包含16名视力正常的学生，研究为什么眨眼之后眼前的世界看起来仍然连贯。在每组实验中，屏幕上投射出一个蓝色字母“A”，一台眼睛追踪仪负责记录眨眼（在这个例子中，是有意识的眨眼）。
Participants had to determine how long the letter appeared on the screen in sessions when they blinked and in others when they didn't blink, as a control. Based on prior research, the scientists hypothesized that we either maintain memory of images while we blink, or else we backdate images to the beginning of a blink, filling in the missing information.
受试者需要分别在有意识的眨眼和不眨眼的情况下估算字母显示的时间。基于之前的研究，科学家们猜测存在两种可能，一种是眨眼时，我们脑海中会保留眼前图像的记忆，另一种可能是我们会自动追溯到眨眼之前的场景，填补空缺的信息。
But because the study participants underestimated how long an image appeared when they blinked, the researchers concluded that neither hypothesis was true. Instead, they suggested that we ignore blinks, possibly because our brain sends a signal that it's just a blink, not some interruption from outside our bodies. This idea is backed up by an earlier study that showed how we don't notice blinks, but we do notice when lights flicker for the same amount of time.
但是研究表明，受试者眨眼时会低估图像显示的时间，研究人员由此得出结论：之前的两种猜测均不正确。相反，他们认为可能的情况是，我们忽略眨眼是因为我们的大脑发出信号——这仅仅是是一次眨眼，而不是来自外在的干扰。以前一项研究曾得出这一结论，这就是为什么我们不会注意到眨眼，但是如果光线在同等时间内闪烁，我们就会意识到。
So, maybe science hasn't got it all figured out yet. Until it does, though, try not to blink — you might miss something.
关于眨眼的奥秘，也许科学还没有完全厘清。在厘清之前，尽量不要眨眼，要不然你可能会错过什么东西哦。
英文来源：How Stuff Works
中文来源：CNKI学术搜索微信公号整理翻译
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