Do We Always See Clearly?

There is a blind spot where the optic nerve enters the retina of your eye. Yet, we don’t see a hole in our field of vision. Scientists always thought that this was because our brain simply ignores the ever-present blind spot. Research has shown that an even more complex system erases that blind spot.

Researchers used computer-generated images to create artificial blind spots in volunteers’ field of vision. These blind spots – sometimes round, sometimes square – were shown against various moving backgrounds. Different shapes and backgrounds were mixed with different colors and sometimes moved slightly in the hope of learning whether the eye, the brain or both process that blind spot out of our vision.

Studies are continuing to test researchers’ conclusions. However, they believe that cells in the brain fill in our blind spot by duplicating the information immediately surrounding it. Separate mechanisms fill in color and texture. These separate mechanisms may even be in different parts of the brain. Strangely enough, though apparently invisible, objects completely in the blind spot seem to be perceived in some unknown way.

Just as the brain and eye work together to make us blind to a true blind spot, sometimes the world, the devil and our flesh work together to make us blind to our own faults. How reassuring to know that we can confidently believe that Jesus Christ carried our sins for our justification rather than permitting us to justify ourselves.

Matthew 7:3
“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

Prayer: I confess to You, my crucified and risen Savior, all my sins, especially my ability to see sin in others more clearly than in myself. Make me more blind to the faults of others. Forgive me and enable me to see more clearly my own faults so that I may bring them to You. Amen.

Notes: B. Bower. “Vision System Puts Eyesight in Blind Spots.” Science News, Vol. 139, p. 262. Photo: Blood vessels of a normal retina. The blind spot would be at the extreme left.