Shropshire Star

Here’s why we don’t need eyes in the back of our heads

Turns out, our brains soak up enough visual information to provide a 360-view of our surroundings.

Published
(Francescoch/Getty Images)

Remember how your maths teacher always knew what you were up to, like she had eyes in the back of her head?

It seems we have the ability to sense what’s going on behind us without turning our heads. But how?

A new study from researchers in Japan has shown how our brains soak up enough visual information to provide a 360-degree view of our surroundings, despite the limitations of our visual field.

The team from the Research Institute of Electrical Communication at Tohoku University in Japan, used what they call a visual search experiment to demonstrate how humans have the ability to perceive things beyond the limits of the visual field.

Visual processing study.
The set-up by the research team featured six visual panels (Satoshi Shioiri)

As part of the experiment, they put together six LCD monitors to create a 360 system for the study participants to stand inside.

On each panel display, six letters (a mix of Ls and Ts) appeared at the same time in randomised positions.

The participants were asked to find a particular letter and the time they took to find the target was recorded.

Variations on the experiments were conducted on 29 volunteers.

Owl 360 GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

And more importantly, this happened even when the target object was located behind them, indicating that visual processing is not limited to the visual field.

In other words, our brain constructs a 360-degree world even though visually we are usually only aware of the area in front of us, the researchers said.

This research is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.