“Troxler fading is a phenomenon of visual perception that the human brain uses to cope with blind spots on the retina, which is the light-sensitive tissue lining of the inner surface of the eye. One result of this phenomenon is that when one fixates on a particular point, objects in one’s peripheral vision will fade away and disappear,” Purcher reports. “Another result related to this phenomenon is the perceived fading of a fixated stimulus when its retinal image is made stationary on the retina, which is otherwise known as a stabilized retinal image. This perceived fading causes the stimulus to fade away after a short time and effectively disappear to the viewer (i.e., the person whose retina is capturing and perceiving the fixed stimulus).”
Purcher reports, “Apple’s invention in various implementations provides systems, methods, and devices that provide a user of a GUI with one or more measures to counteract a perceptual fading of a cursor with respect to the GUI.”
Much more info, and Apple’s patent application illustrations, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iEye, captain!