As an Optometrist I am bound to be biased about the incredible abilities of our eyes but I really do think this is justified! For those people who take their vision for granted, this article is written to try to make you appreciate them just a little bit more. I have compiled my top 5 incredible facts about the eyes and you can feast your eyes on them below!
Our pupils: Ourpupils which are the back areas in the very centre of our iris, are responsible for controlling the amount of light that enters our eyes. If you shine a bright light (not too bright!) into your eye you will notice that your pupil constricts. The opposite happens when you enter a dark room. The reason the pupil does this is that they eye tries to maintain a perfect amount of light entering the eye so as to achieve the optimal visual performance. What is even more impressive is that if you shine a light on one eye you will also notice the pupil of the other will constrict – This is called a consensual reaction. As well as light, our pupils also respond to emotions such as sexual arousal and fear both causing our pupils to dilate!
Our perception: Over 80% of what we perceive and experience in our everyday life is attained through information gathered from our eyes. All our other senses combined only make up around 20% of our perception, which just goes to show how invaluable our eyes are to us.
2 million components: For our eye to function as it does, it requires the co-ordination of around 2 million different components. These components working together will result in our eye transmitting over 20 million different images to the visual cortex in our brain within an average life span of 80 years! It took our eyes millions of years to evolve and you can see why based on the amount of parts that makes them up!
Our brain sees not our eyes: Strictly speaking, our eyes gather all required information about an image we are looking at but the brain actually makes it in to the object that we see. Our brains are heavily biased towards the functioning of our eyes and about half the capacity of our brain is used to enable us to see.
Strongest muscles in the body: Our eye balls are moved using 6 different muscles and our eyes always move together. Try moving one eye and not the other eye and you will see that it is impossible! Our eye muscles are the strongest in our body for their size and are 50 times more powerful than they actually need to be.
Still not impressed!? I give up! I hope this article gives you some insight into the incredible capabilities of our eyes and I hope it inspires you to get your eyes tested on a regular basis. An Optometrist can ensure your eyes remain healthy for life and also offer advice on topics such as contact lenses and laser eye surgery.
This guest article was provided by Tim Harwood, a true admirer of our eyes! As well optometry he also writes on topics ranging from Botox cost to laser hair removal.
