Your eyes dart about rhythmically sampling different parts of a scene in little bites.  Your memory system papers this over to create a illusion of seamless perception.  Let Parr and Friston break it down for you:

Parr, T., & Friston, K. J. (2017). The active construction of the visual worldNeuropsychologia.

For further reading:

Buschman,T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2010) Shifting the Spotlight of Attention: Evidence for Discrete Computations in Cognition. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 4(194): 1-9. View PDF »

Buschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2009) Serial, covert, shifts of attention during visual search are reflected by the frontal eye fields and correlated with population oscillations. Neuron, 63: 386-396. View PDF 

About the Author


The Miller Lab uses experimental and theoretical approaches to study the neural basis of the high-level cognitive functions that underlie complex goal-directed behavior. ekmillerlab.mit.edu