In much less than a second our brain is capable of processing images. In fact, a recent study carried out by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has found that the human brain is capable of processing complete images in just 13 thousandths of a second. Previous studies suggested that the processing power was around 100 milliseconds.
When we see something, the information reaches the retina, where it is transmitted to the brain to later be processed by it in parameters of shape, orientation, color, and so on. To carry out the study published in the scientific journal Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics , the researchers asked a group of people to search for certain types of images such as “smiling couple” or “picnic” in series of images shown during a short span of time. After verifying that the brain was capable of processing the images at 100 milliseconds, they decided to lower the exposure time of the images. Although they found that display performance decreased, they also found that at 80, 53, 40, 27, and finally 13 milliseconds, visual processing was better than when subjects were simply trying to guess if they had seen it.
As Mary Potter, a professor of cognitive and brain sciences at MIT and lead author of the study, explains, ” The fact that we can do that so quickly tells us that what vision does is find concepts . That’s what the brain is doing. all day, trying to understand what we are seeing. “
The study shows that the flow from the retina to the brain’s visual processing centers allows concepts to be identified faster than previously thought.
” The work of the eyes is not just to send information to the brain , but to allow the brain to think about it quickly enough to know what to look for later. So, in general, we are calibrating the movement of our eyes around us with the same frequency that allows us to understand what we are seeing ”, says the researcher.
