Saccadic Suppression: Eyes’ natural stabilizer?

When somebody calls your name, and you suddenly turn around, do you notice anything unusual? Specifically with your sight? Despite you moving so quickly, your vision is crystal clear, unlike video footage where a sudden movement would make it blurry (stabilization helps, but signs of blurriness still show). How does our brain manage it? The answer is Saccadic Suppression, and it’s one of the many invisible tricks your brain performs to create a smooth, seamless perception of the world.

Let’s break down the term a little bit. The first word, Saccadic, comes from saccades, which are rapid movements your eyes make when shifting from one point to another. Now, if the brain didn’t intervene, these movements would create a streaky, unstable image, similar to what I mentioned before. Instead, the brain temporarily suppresses (there’s the second word) visual processing, effectively “turning off” perception for a few milliseconds. So you’re clearly seeing, because you’re not seeing at all? Yep, now you understand. You see because you cannot see. That’s exactly what’s going on. I’m not going into the details, but for naming sake, the parts responsible for motion detection and telling the brain to make us go blind are (mostly) the Superior Colliculus and the Lateral geniculate Nucleus (LGN). 

The first researcher behind this is Alfred Yarbus in the 1950s, who used eye-tracking experiments to show how vision stabilizes despite rapid eye movement. Now, he didn’t understand everything going on, but he sparked a new curiosity. Here’s where it gets weird. 2 decades later, a guy named Matin comes along and confirms half the theory in 1974, and then in 1986, a guy named Volkmann comes along and ‘solves’ the rest (at least puts a somewhat complete theory together. I don’t know if it was a hard problem or they simply had commitment issues, but finally, we have a complete theory on what’s happening.

It’s fascinating, and to some extent hilarious, to see what our brain does to give us the best perception of the world it can give. It does what no camera can. And believe it or not, even though you never consciously experience it, saccadic suppression is happening thousands of times a day. It’s one of those hidden brain processes that make everyday life smooth and effortless; without it, the whole world would be a blur to us. The whole world? Yes, if you didn’t know already, our eyes are constantly moving, even when still. That makes it two paradoxes I’ve told you today, and I can’t afford to confuse you anymore. Bye for now.