Photo: McLaren/Twitter
There are things that just don't go through a race driver's mind when they shift gears and hit the throttle. Wondering if it's 'air' they are breathing or if it's time for their bathroom break is certainly not on the list of thoughts in the heat of the moment. A recent study discovered a peculiar habit among professional race drivers – they blink at the same point going around a track.
Only a few people think about blinking when it comes to their healthcare routine. The simplest explanation for this subconscious human activity is that it cleans the eye's surface of debris with a fresh coating of tears. The involuntary blink sharpens vision, brightening and clearing the image the human retina receives.
Unless you think about it, you'll never notice your eyes blink. But for race drivers pushing their vehicles well above 200 mph (322 kph), their world goes dark for a third of a second, which could mean 20 yards (18 meters) of lost vision.
A new study (first of its kind) published in the journal iScience, investigated human eye blink timing during Formula car racing.
A healthy adult will blink about 12 times in a minute. Each subconscious blink lasts about a third of a second. A race car driver could lose as much as 238 meters of important visual racing information in a third of a mile.
According to the University of IOWA Health Care, the human blinking rate is linked to the task an individual performs. Some people will have a lower blink rate when concentrating on a screen.
According to Ryota Nishizono of NTT Communication Science Laboratories in Atsugi, Japan, blinking doesn't occur solely to moisten the eyes. A few blinks per minute is enough for this sanitary gesture.
Conducting a study to determine how humans process information during physical activity, he was surprised to find no literature on human blinking behavior under extreme conditions like physical competition.
Since he had some background as a professional racing cyclist, he was compelled to conduct the study (how humans blink during high-speed driving) with the help of a Japanese Formula car racing outfit.
Using three professional male racers as the study population sample, the drivers did 304 practice laps in three circuits in Japan – Fuji, Suzuka, and Sugo.
The research team mounted eye trackers on the driver's helmets, and what they discovered was unexpectedly predictable. The data revealed that all three top-level race drivers surprisingly blinked at similar points on the track circuit.
Meaning human eye blinking isn't random but reproducible. According to the study, the drivers had a shared blinking pattern that strongly correlated with acceleration. The sampled drivers did not blink when switching through speed, direction, or hitting a curve. They blinked on safe points – like straightaways.
According to Nishizono, the research team was initially stunned at the consistent blinking patterns. However, since their driving patterns were similar on each circuit, their blinking was expected to be in sync.
Unless you think about it, you'll never notice your eyes blink. But for race drivers pushing their vehicles well above 200 mph (322 kph), their world goes dark for a third of a second, which could mean 20 yards (18 meters) of lost vision.
A new study (first of its kind) published in the journal iScience, investigated human eye blink timing during Formula car racing.
A healthy adult will blink about 12 times in a minute. Each subconscious blink lasts about a third of a second. A race car driver could lose as much as 238 meters of important visual racing information in a third of a mile.
According to the University of IOWA Health Care, the human blinking rate is linked to the task an individual performs. Some people will have a lower blink rate when concentrating on a screen.
According to Ryota Nishizono of NTT Communication Science Laboratories in Atsugi, Japan, blinking doesn't occur solely to moisten the eyes. A few blinks per minute is enough for this sanitary gesture.
Conducting a study to determine how humans process information during physical activity, he was surprised to find no literature on human blinking behavior under extreme conditions like physical competition.
Since he had some background as a professional racing cyclist, he was compelled to conduct the study (how humans blink during high-speed driving) with the help of a Japanese Formula car racing outfit.
Using three professional male racers as the study population sample, the drivers did 304 practice laps in three circuits in Japan – Fuji, Suzuka, and Sugo.
The research team mounted eye trackers on the driver's helmets, and what they discovered was unexpectedly predictable. The data revealed that all three top-level race drivers surprisingly blinked at similar points on the track circuit.
Meaning human eye blinking isn't random but reproducible. According to the study, the drivers had a shared blinking pattern that strongly correlated with acceleration. The sampled drivers did not blink when switching through speed, direction, or hitting a curve. They blinked on safe points – like straightaways.
According to Nishizono, the research team was initially stunned at the consistent blinking patterns. However, since their driving patterns were similar on each circuit, their blinking was expected to be in sync.
How do humans blink while driving a Formula car?
— Ryota Nishizono (@NishizonoRyota) May 19, 2023
Out now @iScience_CP, our new paper revealed expert drivers blinked surprisingly similar locations.
Behind the pattern, there was their implicit strategy to mitigate the effect of vision loss by blinking.https://t.co/BWx305NLQS
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