around, we are still not aware there is a blind spot. Because our eyes
and body are constantly moving, again, the visual system can gather
information to assist in filling in the blind spot. Finally, even if we
keep our eyes and head steady so that this sort of filling cannot occur,
we are still not aware of our blind spot. It is only when we do some
special thing, as above, to draw our attention to the blind region that
we become aware of our blindness. Because these visual blind spots
have been there for our entire lives, and for millions of years during
the evolution of the visual system in vertebrate animals, we have
developed neural strategies to fill in the blind spots by some sort of av-
eraging or integrating of information over space and time.
\
> Outer segment
/\ Inner segment
} Synaptic endingFigure 14.4. Diagram of rod cell (left) and cone cell (right). The outer segments
of the cells contain the rhodopsin and cone opsin photoreceptor proteins. The