So, what to do next? No worries, our eyes have it covered. Fixating on the island vacationer’s face for a long time, then, can result in the Troxler effect, wherein their face starts to look hazy, and we’re suddenly very conscious of that unsettling fact. Is This Normal?: “I Still Sniff My Childhood Blanket to Fall Asleepįollowing the dulling of visual perception, another visual phenomenon that occurs is the Troxler effect, in which fixating on a particular object for a long period of time creates an optical illusion that results in the fading of certain visual aspects of the object, starting from the periphery. “Neural adaptation, the mechanism by which neurons decrease or stop their response to unchanging stimulation, is thought to underlie perceptual fading during prolonged gazing at an object or scene,” the Scientific American reported. Extrapolating it to listening to someone narrating a long-winding tale about their exploits on an island vacation, for example, will affect the brain’s response to the person’s face, which can manifest in our visual perception of them. Neural adaptation is a mechanism in the brain that occurs when prolonged exposure to unchanging stimuli dulls the brain’s response to it.
There are several theories that can be applied to this visual disillusionment that occurs during long conversations. The more I try to focus on where to look, the more panicked I get, and obviously, the less able I am to pay attention to what they’re saying. I’m nodding, looking at my conversation partner’s general face, and then, a sort of discomfort hits me - Do I stare at their left eye or right eye? Are they going to think my eyes are flitting between them too fast? Do I stare at their forehead? Will they think I’m not listening to them? Or do I stare at their mouth? Oh god, they’ll think I want to kiss them. Have you ever been in the middle of a long conversation, in which the other person has been speaking for a while, and suddenly you are hit with the realization that you have absolutely no idea what part of their face to stare at? As someone who (sometimes unwittingly) gets into long debates almost all of the time, this happens to me frequently. In this series, we dig into our strange phobias, fixations, and neuroses, and ask ourselves - Is This Normal?
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