It appears that you can expand your visual field (Image: Tui De Roy/Science Photo Library/Getty)
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WE HARDLY notice our blind spots, but it seems we can shrink them if we want. It just takes a bit of practice.
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If you draw two dots about 10 centimetres apart, close your right eye, and look at the right dot from about 30 centimetres away, you will notice the left dot seems to vanish. That鈥檚 because the dot is being focused on to a spot in your left eye with no photoreceptors 鈥� where the optic nerve joins the retina. You don鈥檛 normally notice it because your brain fills in the gap based on what you see around it.
But people often report a gap in their field of view that is bigger than can be accounted for by the retinal blind spot, says at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. This set his team wondering whether the gap could be reduced.
They devised software that displays a circle slightly bigger than the hole in someone鈥檚 visual field. The circle has stripes within, and volunteers were asked which direction these moved in.
The circle鈥檚 size was adjusted to be just large enough for participants to get the direction right about 70 per cent of the time 鈥� much better than by chance. Over time, volunteers were able to retain this level of accuracy even after the circle had shrunk by about 10 per cent. 鈥淧eople developed sensitivity to things they apparently could not see at the beginning of the training,鈥� says Miller (Current Biology, ).
Only 10 volunteers took part, and Miller says the training wouldn鈥檛 improve the tennis of someone with good sight, for example. But it might help those with visual impairments caused by conditions like age-related macular degeneration.
鈥淚f we can train people to be more sensitive to movement in and about regions of localised blindness, we might improve performance when doing important tasks like driving a car,鈥� he says.
聯If we can train people to be more sensitive to localised blindness, we might improve their driving聰
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淏lind spots wane if you stare at circles鈥�