The human brain perceives the surrounding reality with a delay, the value of which is approximately 15 seconds. Before our mind’s eye, pictures from the past appear, and not from the current present, researchers from the United States found out.
Scientists representing the University of California at Berkeley conducted an experiment that showed that the brain broadcasts pictures from the past to us with a 15-second delay, and does not show the current reality.
We are talking about a neurophysiological mechanism called the “field of continuity” – it allows us to perceive the environment more holistically.
“If our thinking organ updated the picture in real time, then we would see the world as something intermittent – with constant twitching of shadows and moving objects. In order to protect us from this, our brain works like a time machine, keeping us in 15 -second past, so that we can better perceive the surrounding reality,” the scientists say.
The authors of the study conducted an experiment involving 100 volunteers who were shown 30-second videos with changing faces.
At the end of each video, the subjects had to determine the final look of the face, and they almost always chose the look that the face had in the middle of the video.
