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Ingenium Canada Science and Technology Museum

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Finding your Blind Spot

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Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday to Sunday
Address
1867 St Laurent Blvd, Ottawa, ON
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Browse all Visitor Information for Canada Science and Technology Museum
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Finding your Blind Spot

Finding your Blind Spot
Download activity PDF

Our eyes are the perfect team; they work together to send a complete picture to our brains. However, each of our eyes has a spot that is completely blind. Don’t believe it? Try it out for yourself!

What you need

  • A piece of white paper
  • A pencil or pen

Make it

  1. Using your pen or pencil, draw two dots on the paper about 8 cm apart.
  2. Draw a circle on the right dot and a square on the left dot, and make them about 3 cm in height. Fill them in solidly.

Test it

Hold the paper at arm’s length. Close your left eye (use your other hand to help, if needed) and with your open right eye, focus on the square. Slowly begin to bring the paper towards your face. Once you reach the right distance, the circle will disappear! Now try this again – this time closing your right eye and focusing your left eye on the circle.

Explain it

At the back of your eyes, you have structures called photoreceptors. Trap the light that comes in through your pupil, to be sent to the brain as visual information. The optic nerve exits the back of the eye in order to relay this information to the brain. The point where the optic nerve connects to the eye is called the optic disk, and here, there are no photoreceptors. This means no light is received here, leading to a blind spot in our vision!

Eye diagram

Observe It

It’s hard to see this in use, because our brain does such a great job at making sure we never are affected by our natural blind spot! Each eye has a field of vision (the span of everything it can see), and the fields of both eyes overlap. So, when you have both eyes open, the other eye can compensate and fill in the missing information caused by your blind spot.

Go further

During this experiment, it appeared that the circle or the square disappeared. However, that’s not really true; your open eye actually just filled in the gap with what was surrounding it - the white paper! Now, using the image below, repeat the experiment - your open eye will fill in the yellow square with pink as it tries to piece together what should be there.

Blind Spot

Preparing the blind spot
The Experiment

Program Details

SCITECH
Canada Science and Technology Museum
Duration
5 minutes
Difficulty Level:
Easy
Program Location
Online
  • View all programs at the Canada Science and Technology Museum
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About Canada Science and Technology Museum

Canada Science and Technology Museum
The Canada Science and Technology Museum tells Canada's innovation story in an immersive, educational, and fun way.
Read more about the museum

Contact Us

Canada Science and Technology Museum
1867 St Laurent Blvd
Ottawa ON K1G 5A3
Canada

613-991-3044
1-866-442-4416
contact@IngeniumCanada.org
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  • Plan Your Visit
    • Health and Safety
    • Hours
    • Admission
    • Location and Directions
    • Accessibility
    • Browse All Visitor Information
    • Buy Tickets
    • Online Resources for Science at Home
    • About the Museum
  • What's On at the Museum
    • Events
    • Exhibitions
    • Spaces and Studios
  • Bookings and Rentals
    • School Programs
    • Birthday Parties
    • Summer Camps
    • Venue Rentals
    • Travelling Exhibitions
    • Virtual Field Trips
    • Group Visits
  • Educational Programs
    • School Programs
    • Virtual Field Trips
    • Program Location
      • At the Museum
      • At Your School
      • Online
      • Browse all Educational Programs
    • Popular Links
      • 3D Educational Resources
      • Digital Learning Kits
      • Games and Apps
      • Online Resources for Science at Home
      • Tell Me About
      • Try This Out
  • Collection and Research
    • Research Institute
    • Research Projects
    • Collection Resources
      • Ingenium Collection
      • Collection Highlights
      • Conservation and Collection Services
    • Library and Archives
      • Library and Archives Services
      • Library Catalogue
      • Digital Archives
    • Open Access
      • Ingenium APIs
      • Open Data
      • Open Documents
  • Projects and Initiatives
    • Ingenium Channel
    • Curiosity on Stage
    • Women in STEM
    • Innovation Storybook
    • Species at Risk in Canada
    • Climate Science