Your Brain Takes Mini Breaks Each Time You Blink

New Research Reveals Surprising Importance of Blinking

New research suggests that through blinking, our brain maximises its resources to better manage the influx of information it encounters. For a long time, it was thought that blinking only served to moisten the cornea and clean it of dust or particles. However, this reflex could have an influence on brain function and attention span, according to a Belgian study.

A Cognitive Break from Blinking

Over the decades, studies have suggested that spontaneous eye blinking not only fulfils biological functions, it also plays an important cognitive role. Arthur Hall, professor of medicine at the UK’s University of Sheffield, first put forward this idea in 1945 after observing the frequency of blinking in people reading aloud.

A Link to Cognitive Breaks

He noticed that these people blinked mainly when they came across spaces between words. According to Hall, this action could be linked to the need for a cognitive break while reading.

Recent Study Confirms Theory

More recently, a team of experts led by Louisa Bogaerts of Ghent University explored this hypothesis in new research, using data from the Ghent Eye Tracking Corpus study, an experimental protocol during which 15 volunteers were monitored as they silently read an Agatha Christie novel.

Strategic Blinking

In four reading sessions, the researchers recorded a total of 30,367 eye blinks – and these eye movements were far from random. They found that participants were less likely to blink after reading frequently occurring words in the text. They did so much more after their gaze came to rest on more uncommon words.

“It is plausible that after encountering a lower-frequency word, participants were more often in need of a cognitive break, causing a post-effort effect,” the researchers explained in their paper, available on the prepublication site PsyArXiv.

Cues for Blinking

Moreover, these moments of ocular respite coincided with natural cues in the text. Blink rates increased by 4.9 times near punctuation marks, 3.9 times at the end of a line, and 6.1 times when the two were combined.

This indicates that blinks are strategically aligned with text structure, providing micro-breaks to allow the visual flow to better integrate information.

Conclusion

The findings indicate the surprising importance of an action as simple as blinking: by synchronising these micro-breaks, our brain maximises its resources to better manage the influx of information it encounters.

FAQs

Q: Why do we blink?
A: We blink to moisten the cornea and clean it of dust or particles.

Q: What is the purpose of blinking?
A: Blinking plays an important cognitive role in providing micro-breaks to allow the visual flow to better integrate information.

Q: How often do we blink?
A: According to the study, participants blinked around 30,367 times in four reading sessions.

Q: What is the significance of blinking?
A: The study suggests that blinking is strategically aligned with text structure, providing micro-breaks to allow the visual flow to better integrate information, and that it helps our brain maximise its resources to better manage the influx of information it encounters.