Waves of Perception

We experience the world around us as “continuous,” which means everything around us seems uninterrupted and ongoing. But how does our brain achieve that? Here, we suggest that the brain samples our environment in separate snapshots. We demonstrate that brain waves work just like a flipbook, where the rapid stream of related pictures creates the illusion of a continuous movie. We present results from a recent experiment that shows how brain waves capture the world that we see. These brain waves occur approximately 10 times per second and are called “alpha oscillations.” Here, we provide an overview of how these brain waves were discovered, how they can be measured, what they mean, and how they help to create our perception of the world around us.