http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2014/in-the-blink-of-an-eye-0116.html
MIT professor Mary Potter has published a study showing that the human brain is capable of processing images viewed through the eyes for 13 milliseconds. This is significantly faster than the 100 milliseconds reported in earlier research.
The study offers evidence that “feedforward processing” — the flow of information in only one direction, from retina through visual processing centers in the brain — is enough for the brain to identify concepts without having to do any further feedback processing. It also suggests that while the images are seen for only 13 milliseconds before the next image appears, part of the brain continues to process those images for longer than that.
The researchers are now investigating how long visual information presented so briefly can be held in the brain. They are also scanning subjects’ brains with a magnetoencephalography (MEG) scanner during the task to see what brain regions are active when a person successfully completes the identification task.
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