48. Peripheral Vision is Used More than Central Vision to Get the Gist of What is Going On

You have two types of vision: central and peripheral. Central vision is what you use to look at things directly and to see details. Peripheral vision encompasses the rest of the visual field—areas that are visible but that you’re not looking at directly. Being able to see things out of the corner of your eye is certainly useful, but new research from Kansas State University shows that peripheral vision is more important in understanding the world around us than most people realize. It seems that we get information on what type of scene we’re looking at from our peripheral vision.

Adam Larson and Lester Loschky (2009) showed people photographs of common scenes, such as a kitchen or a living room. In some of the photographs, the outside of the image was obscured, and in others the central part of the image was obscured. The images were shown for very short amounts of time, and were purposely shown with a gray filter so they were somewhat hard to see (Figure 48.1 and Figure 48.2). Then they asked the research participants to identify what they were looking at.

Figure 48.1. Central vision photo used in Larson and Loschky research

Figure 48.2. Peripheral vision photo used in Larson and Loschky research

Larson and Loschky found that if the central part of the photo was missing, people could still identify what they were looking at. But when the peripheral part of the image was missing, they couldn’t say whether the scene was a living room or a kitchen. They tried obscuring different amounts of the photo. They concluded that central vision is more critical for specific object recognition, but that peripheral vision is used for getting the gist of a scene.

Central and Peripheral Vision for Your Audience

In order to have maximum impact, you want to know what is likely to be in the central and peripheral vision of your audience. The more important your presentation is, the more time you should spend researching and adjusting the visual field of your audience. The best speakers don’t leave this to chance. If possible, go to the room you will be speaking in, and sit in different seats in the audience. What will be in the audience’s central vision? What will be in their peripheral vision? When people get the gist of the scene in their peripheral vision, what will that gist be? That the session is professional? That the speaker is the star? Are there distractions in the peripheral vision? You hope that when you give your presentation, you will be right in people’s central vision. In order to make that happen, you need to make sure that the peripheral visual field gives the right impression and doesn’t distract.