Speed
The vestibulo-ocular reflex needs to be fast: for clear vision, head movement must be compensated almost immediately; otherwise, vision corresponds to a photograph taken with a shaky hand. To achieve clear vision, signals from the semicircular canals are sent as directly as possible to the eye muscles: the connection involves only three neurons, and is correspondingly called the three neuron arc. Using these direct connections, eye movements lag the head movements by less than 10 ms, and thus the vestibulo-ocular reflex is one of the fastest reflexes in the human body.
Read more about this topic: Vestibulo-ocular Reflex
Famous quotes containing the word speed:
“The correct rate of speed in innovating changes in long-standing social customs has not yet been determined by even the most expert of the experts. Personally I am beginning to think there is more danger in lagging than in speeding up cultural change to keep pace with mechanical change.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Wait, Kate! You skate at such a rate
You leave behind your skating mate.
Your splendid speed won’t you abate?
He’s lagging far behind you, Kate.”
—David Daiches (b. 1912)
“Among the laws controlling human societies there is one more precise and clearer, it seems to me, than all the others. If men are to remain civilized or to become civilized, the art of association must develop and improve among them at the same speed as equality of conditions spreads.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)