Eyes Blink When Mind Wanders
One of the major lessons learned about how the mind works over the last couple of decades is that it is fully dependent on the body. Cognition is embodied or at least partially determined by bodily actions, interactions and so-called “memories”. Talking with our hands, solving a problem by walking or pacing, moving to learn and so on. Now there is new evidence that we blink as an embodiment of day dreaming. The idea is that we blink to help shut out perceptual input that would otherwise require attention and interfere with our wandering mind. ScienceDaily has a nice summary of the study, Out of Mind, out of Sight: Blinking Eyes Indicate Mind Wandering. To quote:
”What we suggest is that when you start to mind-wander, you start to gate the information even at the sensory endings — you basically close your eyelid so there’s less information coming into the brain,” says Smilek.
This is part of a shift in how scientists are thinking about the mind, he says. Psychologists are realizing that “you can’t think about these mental processes, like attention, separately from the fact that the individual’s brain is in a body, and the body’s acting in the world.” The mind doesn’t ignore the world all by itself; the eyelids help.”
Designs that support mind wandering can be important for stress management and creativity.
