The human eye has a blind spot at the area of the retina where the optic nerve leads back into the brain. [via]
The blind spots in each eye are aligned symmetrically so that most of the time, one eye’s field of vision will compensate for the loss of vision in the other. The diagram above shows where the blind spots are located.
To find the eye’s blind spot, you can do the following tests.
In order to find the blind spot of the right eye, it is necessary to close the left eye, focus the right eye on a single point, and see if anything vanishes from vision some 20 degrees right of this point. The following diagram has a set of characters on the left hand side, and black circle on the right. Keeping your head motionless, with the right eye about 3 or 4 times as far from the page as the length of the red line, look at each character in turn, until the black circle vanishes.
This is seriously some trippy stuff!
The opposite idea works in testing the blind spot of the left eye as well. Just do the exact same as the image above, but with the left eye opened and the right eye closed.
Those are the two basic eye tests. They worked for me and now I know for sure that the blind spot in the human eye is real. This Blind Spot page has more tests that you can do.
It’s amazing how the brain assumes certain things in our field of vision so accurately despite the fact that the eyes cannot actually see what is there.
THIS IS THE COOLEST THING I’VE LEARNED ALL WEEK!
a friend told me that girls have more peripheral vision than boys do.
i don’t know if it’s true or not but in order for that circle to vanish, i had to look a little farther away than where the letters are.
RE: mun
but isn’t it neat that it still works?!
Whoa, weird.
RE: Mun
So you think you better than us!?
HELL YA I THINK WE ARE BETTER THAT YOU GUYS WE DONT HAVE EYES! WE BLIND!
RE: Joel
HAHAHAHA!
with my right eye.. the dot disappeared when i was at the “cks” line.. and with my left eye it disappeared when i was at the “dlt” line.. so does that mean my left eye is stronger?
NO DUMBY IT MEANS YOUR RIGHT EYE IS STRONGER…. THINK! USE THE BRAIN YOU DONT HAVE. HA HA HA
are you mentally retarded? that’s really the only explanation
thats not really funny and plus we all just want to know here. not be rude and call people stupid, because you probably were joking but know one is laughing…
whoa! so this morning when i tried it, i had glasses on and i had to look farther to see when the circle vanished. and i just tried it again with my contacts on and it disappeared with the letters! whoa! WHOA!
That’s so cool! I feel like my eyes are broken now though. It’s no longer whole like I thought it was. haha
wooh
…I still don’t see the point of this
Does being left handed affect the blind spot? would you have to close different eyes if you were left handed? please answer my question!