Our eyes are amazing structures. Taking in information from a 220° field of vision, they are at their best when focusing on about 10% of what is directly in front of us. This is the optimum field at which our eyes focus perfectly. Outside of this range is what science calls our ‘peripheral vision’, and this is where things get complicated. The best cones and rods in our eyeballs are clustered in the 10% optimum focal area, outside of that in the peripheral field, the brain receives less information, and must therefore interpret what we are seeing by, well, basically making stuff up out of the limited information it has available. Our vision is explained here in this diagram:
As you can see, that’s a wide area where our brain is having to make stuff up. To illustrate this point, watch the following video. By focusing on the spot in the center of the video, your brain will have to interpret the faces of the celebrities arranged either side of the crosshairs. You’d think such recognisable faces would be interpreted perfectly, wouldn’t you? After all, who doesn’t know what Brad Pitt looks like? Well, you may be very surprised!
Check it out …