THE "I" IN THE EYE

Abstract

Excerpted from "CIDER: Enabling Robustness-Power Tradeoffs on a Computational Eyeglass," from Proceedings of the 21st Annual ACM International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking with permission. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2790096 © ACM 2015. The eye is a truly unique and fascinating piece of physiology. Through it, organisms take in massive amounts of sensory data; through it, they also communicate emotion and intent both consciously and unconsciously. It is so tightly coupled with the operation of the brain that even slight mental blocks like being tired are measurable through eye movements. Eye-related research has long worn out the cliche "the eyes are the window to the soul," and this is largely because there is a deeper truth behind this phrase that has come to light in the last several decades of psychology and neurology research. In short, we now understand that the eyes are the best window to the mind. (Kahneman 2011).