Attention! this might just be important. The problem is that so many things compete for our attention that we are in danger of missing crucial events (such as a pedestrian stepping off the pavement into the path of our vehicle).
We are usually understood to be able to keep track of only about six things at a time. The real world contains many more possible calls on consciousness…we are often blissfully unaware of how much we miss. One example (which I’ve mentioned before) is that, when attempting to detect the seemingly imperceptible differences between two “alike” images, all you have to do is “fuse” these by crossing your eyes a little and visually superimposing them. Areas of disparity then all stand out simultaneously as twinkling regions.
Today’s invention exploits this phenomenon. Imagine a driver wearing a small display on which is shown an image of the scene as it looked (to one eye) a few minutes ago. His other eye views the scene normally and these two images will naturally fuse in the brain.
Parts of the scene which have changed in the last few moments will be highlighted in one’s visual field as twinkling regions. This allows a driver, for example, to detect even slightly moving objects more easily -and avoid colliding with them.
