Talk:Blinking

Comments
Fascinating and insightufl, this article is everything the Wikipedia should aspire to be. --Squirminator2k 14:29, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

JMVS reference?
The Journal of Modern Vision Science appears to be a small, new, non-peer-reviewed publication. This should be noted or possibly the link should be removed? 64.140.82.50 15:21, 8 March 2006 (UTC)Greg Shubert

sexual orientation
Removed:
 * However, there is an established gender difference in inhibition of the startle response blink: men (and lesbian women) manifest greater inhibition of the reflex than heterosexual women (Q. Rahman et al., 2003, Behavioral Neuroscience).

Wikipedia cannot repeat each and every statement published by a researcher. The claim of Rahman is contested by other scientists, see e.g., [here] the statistics is questioned. Here is stated that Rahman in his small study of 15 + 15 persons  didn't take into an account of other factors known to significantly influence blinking, e.g., smoking habits.

In any case, one cannot convert encyclopedia into scientific debate. A single journal article is insufficent for verifiability. `'mikka (t) 23:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Animation
Use this image if you like. Silversmith Hewwo 09:58, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I find the animation distracting, I think if an "animation" is going to be used then it should not be slowed down. It completely defeats the purpose of using the gif.

Spell
Well it may sound odd but there is a spell called Blink that more or less teleports the caster a small distence in a random directon. I don't know if Wikipedia should have it, but I feel that it should. The spell can be seen in games such as Warcraft III, D&D and others.Nefzen 21:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Children and Yogis
Hey guys, wikipedia's policy is 'be bold in editing articles' so I added a few intriguing sections. If anyone does not believe in the veracity of what I have written he has but to observe children himself. I didn't believe it for a long while myself and I was supprised it wasn't in any psych textbook I had read, but I saw it over and over, in at least 15 children. If anyone wants proof that these gurus do not blink or blink much less than normal s/he has but to look up videos of them on google or through any other source. Note that as Sri Chinmoy does not have blinklessness when he is engaged in normal daily events, but he when he does public open eye meditation, such as he did for the United Nations; however as far as I can tell Yogananda and Osho do have a waking state of highly suppressed blinking/startle reflex. —Preceding unsigned comment added by David (talk • contribs)

Drugs
It is also possible that various drugs inhibit blink response. This i'm not sure of to put on the main page as of yet but it would be excellent to see an analysis of narcotics and which effect autonomic response such as the blink or sneeze. Particularly I believe marajuana has a significant effect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by David (talk • contribs)

Trataka
Trataka, is a Hindu spiritualist pratice which involves controlling of the visual blink phenomena. Like in other portions of yoga a goal of the pratice is to control the autonomic system of the body. In pranayama, it's control of breathing, in trataka often control of blink. This is probably too 'religious' of a comment to put on the main page even though it's simply a pratice. If someone finds a good neutral wording for it go ahead and add some information. Or perhaps just a link. —Preceding unsigned comment added by David (talk • contribs)

Image
Thanks for the image Silversmith--it looks great in the article! Baleyp 04:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)Baleyp

Needing Info
There are no links available for the muscles within the eyelid. If anyone was interested in creating an article for these muscles it would be a great opportunity and would really help this article! Just a suggestion to anyone looking for some article ideas. I think that your idea for a drug analysis sounds interesting david. Baleyp 04:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)Baleyp

possible error?
hey, im shure this was a good faith mistake, but im fiarly shure that Parkinson's Disease does not present with increased rate of blinking, but rather reduced - Parkinson's sufferers have a serpentine like stare about them, with facial akinesia. (Kumar and Clark, 2005, London) It is most distinctive. Ill edit the page, but if I have made a mistake, please feel free to correct it, and i apologise.

Brain Pauses
I have a book called "Can Cows Walk Down Stairs?", edited by Paul Heiney (2005, ISBN 0-7503-3747-5) which is a compendium of answers to questions. I shall recite here verbatim:

"Q: Why do we blink?

A: There is more to blinking than meets the eye. Clearly, we have to blink to cleanse and moisten the eye: each time the eyelids close, salty secretions from the tear glands are swept over the surface of the eye, flushing away small dust particles and lubricating the exposed portion of the eyeball. Normally we blink every four to six seconds, but in irritating conditions such as a smoke-filled room we blink more frequently to keep the eyes clean and moist.

However, we blink more often than we need to, if blinking were just about keeping the corneas of our eyes moist and clear. Infants only blink once every minute or so, but adults blink an average of ten to fifteen times a minute. Scientists now think this is all to do with the gathering of information, because experiments have shown that we blink less when information is coming at us thick and fast, and we blink more often when we are not taking much in. Blinks are like punctuation marks of the mind, signaling a pause in the activity in your head. If we are reading interesting material, we blink an average of three to eight times per minute, as opposed to fifteen times a minute when we are not engaged in attention-demanding activity. We are also most likely to blink as our eyes shift from one page of text to the next, or from the end of a line of text to the beginning of the next line. Any single blink isn't always like the next. Scientists have shown that frequency and duration vary under different conditions. RAF pilots flying simulators over 'friendly' territory have been shown to blink more frequently and to keep their eyelids closed for longer than when flying over 'enemy' territory. Pilots blink the least when they have been spotted by enemy radar and are attempting to find and evade missiles, or when landing and aircraft."

Is there any evidence of this on the net or other books? Thisnamestaken (talk) 21:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Loud Noise and Blinking Purpose
Most of our instinctive reactions have a purpose to defend us from would-be dangers, like suddenly raising your hands up and moving away from your current position when someone surprises and frightens you, and so on... But why do we blink when we hear a loud noise? I mean, it really has absolutely no benefit...it not only doesn't help you but blocks your vision for a time and delays your reaction.

Does anybody know anything about this? Bojan

Voluntary or semi-voluntary
The article says that blinking is a voluntary act. But I think it's more correct to say that it is a semi-voluntary act... like breathing, for example, because we don't "remember" every time that we have to blink, but it is an automatic action, that we can control if we want. Isn't this right?--Sid-Vicious (talk) 22:40, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Duration of blinks
I may be mistaken, but truly reflex blinks last less than 100ms (50 to 80 on average). It may be that "forced" or controled blinks last longer (even then, 400ms sounds improbable), but they are probably not explained bythe same processes. Blink duration is a very important question, as it is often used as a measure of attention and sleepiness. This requires clarification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.59.147.183 (talk) 15:13, 20 September 2010 (UTC) I agree, 300m to 400m seconds is much too long. Paulxl — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.196.59.243 (talk) 16:32, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Cited References
The #2 cited reference isn't useful since it's an opinion-survey with leading questions with incorrectly fixed answers. The "correct" answers are obviously altered to match the expected results, not the actual results of the survey. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mduvigneaud (talk • contribs) 06:43, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Cultural blinking
If anyone is able to add to this by talking about when people blink to convey info such as passive aggression that'd be good Farleigheditor (talk) 16:48, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Gender
The article mentions differences between males and females but calls them genders. I'd like to avoid the argument whether there exists biologically meaningful categories to describe homo sapiens sapiens sexual characteristics. (My opinion is there are, but they are aren't only of two categories; there're many exceptions). I checked the abstracts of the two cited articles on gender differences. First, they're primary research - I question them as authoritative. They also are small studies of demographically biased samples. The real issue is that both do NOT use the terms "male" and "female" unlike this article. Both use the terms "men" and "women" - which in my opinion (and, I believe, the current (WEIRD) public majority's opinion) are gender categories (not sex). I am going to change the terms used here from male and female to the correct (politically correct, also) men's and women's. I highly doubt the researchers checked the subjects DNA, hormones, or genitals to determine their sexes, making the studies of two adult gender groups: men and women.40.142.183.146 (talk) 22:24, 15 June 2023 (UTC)