Popular Tags
Latest News Blog
There are many opinions on the topic of texting and driving. The goal of this blog is to neither refute nor endorse the subject, but instead to explore the effects on vision during texting. It is up to the reader to make a judgement call on the endorsement of texting and driving.
You may not be surprised to hear that texting has replaced drunken driving as the number one cause of deaths in the teenage population. According to Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New York, teen drunken driving has gone down over 50% since 1991 but the number of people texting and driving has skyrocketed. It is illegal to text and drive in the UK, but not in many states in the USA. Some phone companies are launching ad campaigns to discourage texting while driving, and they are reporting a 23 times higher incidence of an accident if you text and drive.
So why does it make you more likely to crash from a visual perspective? The problem lies in distraction from driving. For example, it takes a fast texter approximately 20 seconds to read and reply to a text. At 55 mph on the highway, a driver glances away from the road for approximately one-third of a mile. When the driver is focusing on their screen, this gives the driver essentially tunnel vision causing the visual system to essentially use peripheral vision. Your central vision is used to detect depth perception, detail, and colors such as red or green. So when texting, your depth perception, or 3-D vision, is altered, so that if cars are stopped ahead or closing in rapidly, its not detected. Brake lights are red, so while texting, our visual system is using mainly peripheral vision, which can detect gross movement, but not the color red.
So next time you encounter situations with texting and driving, know that the visual system was designed to perform advanced visual perception while using central vision. This includes detail vision, depth perception, and color vision....all of which are placed on hold while texting and driving, since the visual system switches to peripheral vision designed to detect gross movements.
For more information on texting and driving see:
US Dept. of Transportation
The content of this blog cannot be reproduced or duplicated without the express written consent of EYEiQ
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.
Siegfried and Roy’s white tiger dazzled us with its magic. Shamu, the famous killer white whale at Sea World dances upon the water to the amazement of crowds, and who can forget Benji or Lassie as childhood heroes. Have you ever explored the fascinating world of animal vision? Who wins the prize for the the most advanced visual species of the animal or insect kingdom? The results may surprise you.
We all agree that birds of prey (hawks, eagles, falcons etc.) have the best bionics hands down but have you ever considered the vision of the colossal squid, or the dragon fly, the ogre spider or mantis shrimp?
The colossal squid has an eye larger than any sea animal: it's the size of a basketball! The squid’s eyes and 3-D vision are so astute so that they can spy whales that would be predatory to them.
The dragon fly has incredible vision, better than any other insect. Take for instance the common house fly who has around 6,000 eye facets that give them an astounding panoramic view of the world. Amazingly, dragonflies have 5 times more eye facets than houseflys, giving them 30,000 units of panoramic viewing. With this skill, they can predict where their prey will be and get there before the other insect does, thus the dragon fly comes in as a leader of all insects in the "amazing vision contest“!
Consider the ogre spider next. The ogre spider, out of all other spiders has this unique feature: two large posterior facing eyes with six smaller eyes to see prey even in the dark. It's huge eyes have outstanding night vision, in fact, about 2000 times better than most spiders! This unique portrayal of night vision gives it the edge over many other species in hunting prey.
So how about the mantis shrimp? How can a shrimp have good eyesight you ask? They have the number one most complex visual system of any species known to man. Literally hi-definition vision! They have compound eyes with 16 photoreceptors (humans have 3) and they see all colors of the spectrum including UV and singular & circular polarized light.
This is like an electric 3-D light show on steroids! There is ongoing research on how they can see 3-D with only one eye and how they communicate visually.
Keys to researching different species vision may on day unlock mysteries into the human eye. Only the future will tell what nature may unlock for future vision breakthroughs.
Keep your eye on the tiger and other species for more vision breakthroughs in the future!
The content of this blog cannot be reproduced or duplicated without the express written consent of EYEiQ
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.
