Blink

Summary

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Radiolab: "Blink"

Podcast: Radiolab (WNYC Studios)
Date: October 6, 2009
Hosts: Jad Abumrad, Robert Krulwich
Special Guests: Walter Murch (film editor), Tamami Nakano & Shigeru Chita Zawa (neuroscientists)

Overview

This episode dives deep into a simple, yet surprisingly complex question: Why do we blink? Jad and Robert explore not just the practical, biological reasons, but also the curious psychological and narrative roles blinking plays in our perception of the world, diving into the worlds of film editing and neuroscience to uncover fascinating insights. Along the way, they examine how blinking could serve as a form of mental punctuation—a way we process and discretize our experiences.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Mundane Miracle of Blinking (01:42–02:42)

• Opening Question:
  Jad and Robert debate the purpose of blinking, with the common assumption (from “ninth grade”) being that it’s just to wetten the eyeball.

• Surprising Fact:
  “On really humid days, or in the sauna, you don’t blink less... they’ve actually done studies.” – Jad Abumrad (02:44–02:59)
  The blink rate remains constant, suggesting some other reason behind blinking.

• Robert’s Observation:
  “Your mind erases the darkness of the blink. So you can blink away, but the world will seem seamless and blinkless to you... you will not feel the blink inside.” (Robert Krulwich, 02:16–02:39)

2. Blinkology & Film Editing: Walter Murch’s Discovery (03:19–07:12)

• Introduction to Walter Murch:
  Legendary editor (Apocalypse Now, The Godfather).
  He describes his editing process as “run[ning] the film at full speed and try[ing] to feel the rhythm in an almost musical way.” (Walter Murch, 05:42–05:50)

• Creeping Collaboration:
  While editing The Conversation, Murch notices a pattern: “every time he made a cut, he would see that on the screen, Gene Hackman would have blinked.” (Jad Abumrad paraphrasing, 06:42–06:48)

• Emerging Theory:
  Murch begins to suspect that blinking might be a kind of hidden mental punctuation—a synchrony between editing choices and actor’s blinking rhythms:
  “Am I responding to him blinking? That didn’t seem like that it was possible. And yet the alignment was consistent.” (Walter Murch, 06:58–07:12)

3. Scientific Inquiry: Blinking as Mental Punctuation (07:36–12:28)

• Japanese Neuroscientists Enter:
  Tamami Nakano & Shigeru Chita Zawa conduct experiments with electrodes to record blinks while subjects watch movies (Mr. Bean).

• Major Findings:

  • Individual Consistency:
    “Within each person, they blink at the same time point in the movie.” (Tamami Nakano, 09:39–09:44)
  • Social Synchronization:
    “A large percentage of their subjects actually fell in sync... with each unconscious blink that you make, 70 people make that blink right with you.” (Jad Abumrad, 10:15–10:23 paraphrasing)
    • “According to our analysis, one third of blinks contributed to synchronization.” (Interviewer, 10:15–10:23)

• Blinks as Rest Stops:
  Blinks occur “at the conclusion of action by the actor,” or during narrative “rest stops.”
  Example: When the screen shows an “empty street” or after Mr. Bean finishes an action, everyone blinks. (Tamami Nakano, 11:18–11:49)

• Hypothesis:
  Blinking as a result of “chunking”—segmenting life or information into manageable units.
  “Blink might be chunk. Make a chunking of the flow of information for effective processing.” (Tamami Nakano, 12:45–12:58)

4. Life, Cinema, and Blinking: Connections & Musings (12:58–14:47)

• Murch’s Analogy:
  “It’s like that moment when we save a disk. There’s enough information in our buffer, so to speak... And that’s at that moment that we blink.” (Walter Murch, 12:58–13:10)

• Culture & Evolution:
  Robert and Jad muse about whether modern media has changed our “chunking”—or blinking—patterns over time.

  • “I wonder if the blink rates have changed over generations.” (Jad Abumrad, 13:54–13:57)
  • “I'm sure they have.” (Robert Krulwich, 13:57)

• Time Lost to Blinking:
  “So in a two hour movie you’re missing total 15 minutes.” (Jad Abumrad, 14:41)
  “So in an 80-year life, you’re missing two years… two years of darkness, which you are thanks to your lovely brain, you are totally unaware of missing.” (Robert Krulwich, 14:41–14:50)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Consciousness:
  “Your mind erases the darkness of the blink. So you can blink away, but the world will seem seamless and blinkless to you.”
  (Robert Krulwich, 02:16–02:39)

• Film Editing as Mind Reading:
  “Am I responding to him blinking? That didn’t seem like that it was possible. And yet the alignment was consistent.”
  (Walter Murch, 06:58–07:12)

• Synced Blinking:
  “With each unconscious blink that you make, 70 people make that blink right with you. Like all these little butterfly wings fluttering at the same time. Wow.”
  (Jad Abumrad, 10:23)

• Chunking Insight:
  “Blink might be chunk. Make a chunking of the flow of information for effective processing.”
  (Tamami Nakano, 12:45–12:58)

• Data Storage Analogy:
  “It’s like that moment when we save a disk... that’s at that moment that we blink.”
  (Walter Murch, 12:58–13:10)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:42] – Introduction to the science and psychology of blinking
• [03:33] – Walter Murch’s story about editing and blink discovery
• [07:36] – Introduction to Japanese blink researchers
• [08:24] – Experiment set-up: Electrodes and Mr. Bean
• [09:39] – Discovery: Blinks are synchronized within individuals
• [10:15] – Discovery: Social synchronization
• [11:18] – Blinks coincide with natural “rest stops” in narrative/action
• [12:45] – Hypothesis: Blinks as mental chunking
• [14:41] – Quantifying time lost to blinking
• [14:47] – Lifelong blinking adds up to two years of lost darkness

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Conclusion

The episode elegantly weaves together science, film, and lived experience to reveal that blinking is far more than an automatic biological function. It may function as a punctuation mark—synchronizing thought, memory, and even social experience, creating shared pauses in both storytelling and life. And, in a poetic final twist, all those blinks add up: entire years spent in darkness, invisibly sliced out of our conscious lives.

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For listeners and non-listeners alike, "Blink" is a compelling reminder that even our smallest actions can reflect profound truths about how we process the world—and about what it means to see, and to miss, the passing moments of our lives.

Transcript

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[Interviewer]

Wait, you're listening.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay. All right. Okay. All right.

[Tamami Nakano]

You're listening to Radiolab.

[Jad Abumrad]

Radio Lab Sharks from wnyc.

[Walter Murch]

Yes.

[Jad Abumrad]

And npr. Let's just do it. You gonna do it?

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

Let's just freaking do it. Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krylwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab. The podcast.

[Robert Krulwich]

The podcast.

[Jad Abumrad]

Today's topic is. Well, you know what? Something you just did.

[Robert Krulwich]

I didn't. I had my eyes closed the whole time.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, you gave it away. You know what I'm about to say. Pretend you don't know what I'm saying. Okay, today's topic is something you just did, actually.

[Robert Krulwich]

What?

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, you did it again. There and there.

[Robert Krulwich]

I don't know what it is. Something with my fingernails?

[Jad Abumrad]

No, no. And there.

[Robert Krulwich]

Something. What? Tell me.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay. You blinked.

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh.

[Jad Abumrad]

Do you ever wonder?

[Robert Krulwich]

I know this about blinks. This is interesting.

[Jad Abumrad]

What?

[Robert Krulwich]

When you blink, you should, if you really understand what's going on, sense a little bit of darkness. Because after all, your eyes are closed for an instant of time. But you don't. Because your mind erases the darkness of the blink. So you can blink away, but the world will seem seamless and blinkless to you. Even though your observers will see you blinking, you will not feel the blink inside.

[Jad Abumrad]

Do you ever wonder what is the actual purpose of the blink?

[Robert Krulwich]

To wetten your eyeball, I assume.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, that's what they tell you in ninth grade. But actually, you would think, if that is the case, that on really humid days, or let's say in the sauna, you would blink less because it's very humid in there, you don't have to wet.

[Robert Krulwich]

That's what I think. On very dry days, I would blink more.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, they've actually done studies where they put people in saunas and they've measured the rate of their blinks, and it doesn't change. Oh, so there's something else going on. And so that's what we want to explore in this podcast. Why do we blink? Actually, the answers are completely fascinating.

[Robert Krulwich]

Who are you going to ask this question to? A great scientist. A blink.

[Jad Abumrad]

You will meet a blinkologist shortly. But first, I want to take you to a guy who. Well, he's a blinkologist of a different sort. Let's say he doesn't really study blinks, per se, but he. Well, he sort of stumbled into it.

[Walter Murch]

My name is Walter Murch. I'm a film editor, and I've been working both as a film editor and as a sound mixer since the late 1960s.

[Jad Abumrad]

Walter Murch has edited some amazing films. Apocalypse now, the Godfather, Cold Mountain. He's really one of the great editors in modern cinema.

[Walter Murch]

Oh, well, thank you. Thank you.

[Jad Abumrad]

He's also a great thinker about editing.

[Walter Murch]

Thank you.

[Jad Abumrad]

And he tells the following story about a discovery that he made while working on one of his early films.

[Walter Murch]

Well, this was many years ago when I was editing Francis Coppola's the Conversation.

[Jad Abumrad]

Which, by the way, is another great, great movie.

[Walter Murch]

It was, I think, 1972. 1973.

[Jad Abumrad]

And in the movie, Gene Hackman plays a surveillance expert who spends the whole movie, essentially, to decode this one conversation that he's recorded. So Walter Murch is there. He's in the editing suite trying to put it all together.

[Walter Murch]

And I was working late at night.

[Jad Abumrad]

All by myself on this old editing machine, making the tape go, Making it.

[Walter Murch]

Go backwards and forward. Stop.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, look, that's terrible.

[Walter Murch]

Cut.

[Ross Advertiser]

Tap dead on a park bench.

[Walter Murch]

Stop. And I was editing the scene when Gene Hackman is assembling get him for Christmas.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yet he's already got everything, the tapes.

[Walter Murch]

That he's listening to in his laboratory.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's a bit Of a meta moment, actually, because on screen, Gene Hackman is editing tape. And in his room, Walter Murch is editing tape of Gene Hackman editing tape. A lot of fun.

[Tamami Nakano]

You are.

[Jad Abumrad]

Now every scene in a movie, even simple scenes, require tons of cuts. Because as a viewer, you're constantly being bounced around from one camera angle to the next into the next. And though it seems like what you're watching is a continuous performance from the actor, it's actually been cobbled together by the editor from dozens of takes. So Walter Murch is doing this. He's editing this scene cut by laborious cut. And it's important to understand he's making every cut by feel.

[Walter Murch]

What I will do is run the film at full speed and try to feel the rhythm in an almost musical way.

[Jad Abumrad]

And right when he's ready, he'll there.

[Walter Murch]

Hit the cut button and then rewind, run the film again and cut. And if I've hit that cut button on the same frame twice in a row, that tells me that I'm probably where I should be.

[Jad Abumrad]

So he is editing this scene together. Takes many days, he says. And somewhere along the way, he begins to get this creeping sense.

[Walter Murch]

You know, when you're in a room and maybe there's a leak outside and you. There's a little drip, drip, drip going on. I began to get the sense that. That there was some collaboration going on between myself and in this case, Gene Hackman.

[Jad Abumrad]

Cause he would find, he says that every time he made a cut, he would see that on the screen, Gene.

[Walter Murch]

Hackman would have blinked.

[Jad Abumrad]

You mean your cuts kept falling smack in the middle of his blinks?

[Walter Murch]

Uh, yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow.

[Walter Murch]

And I thought, well, this is peculiar. Am I responding to him blinking? That didn't seem like that. It was possible. And yet the alignment was consistent.

[Jad Abumrad]

So Walter Murch developed a theory that maybe blinking has very little to do with moisture or any of that. Maybe it's a kind of hidden punctuation to thought or storytelling. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this. Now, this is a very cool idea, but it's just an idea. And we wanted to know if there's anything to this scientifically. Can you do me a favor to introduce yourselves?

[Interviewer]

Yes, yes. Tamami first.

[Jad Abumrad]

But then we found out about these two Japanese researchers. Introduce me, who were nice enough to Skype with us.

[Tamami Nakano]

My name is Tamami Nakano. I research in the cognitive neuroscience.

[Interviewer]

My name is Shigeru Chita Zawa, and she was a student of mine. Okay, Tamami is going to talk.

[Tamami Nakano]

No, no. Blink is very common. Very common phenomenon, but purpose of ring is mystery.

[Jad Abumrad]

The reason we had called Tamami and Shiguro is because they had just completed an experiment which they hoped would solve this mystery of blinking. What they did was they got a bunch of subjects together and they hooked each person up to a kind of gizmo.

[Interviewer]

We put two electrodes, one above and one below the eye, and when we blink, we can record very strong electrical signal. And we can later analyze automatically when the subject blinked.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is actually what it sounds like when a person blinks. Once they had everybody hooked up, they played them a movie.

[Tamami Nakano]

In each person, I present the movie for three times.

[Interviewer]

What movie did you use, by the way, Mr. Bean? British comedy.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, Mr. Bean, if you don't know the movie, I didn't. It's kind of like a farce.

[Tamami Nakano]

So that Mr. Bean is. I select the Mr. Bean because the story is easily understandable without sound.

[Jad Abumrad]

The reason she took out the sound was for. Well, it's actually not that interesting why she took out the sound. What they did was they watched people watching movies, recorded their blinks each time they watched. And what they found, it was really weird. First thing they noticed within each person.

[Tamami Nakano]

They blink at the same time point in the movie.

[Jad Abumrad]

Meaning people, when they watch the movie many times tend to always blink in the same spots.

[Tamami Nakano]

But weirder than that, also the timing of blink occur at the same time between people.

[Jad Abumrad]

They found that a large percentage of their subjects actually fell in sync. They began to blink at the exact same moment in the movie. How often did synchronization occur between people?

[Interviewer]

According to our analysis, one third of blinks contributed to synchronization.

[Jad Abumrad]

Just to appreciate that, I mean, imagine you're sitting in a movie theater with 200 other people. It's dark, the movie starts, action gets on the way, and you're just there watching. And with each unconscious blink that you make, 70 people make that blink right with you. Like all these little butterfly wings fluttering at the same time. Wow. And so they. So the question was, why? Why does this happen? And they analyzed their data with that question in mind. What they found is that what seems to be happening is that people, as they watch the movie, get in sync with the story. They intuit the narrative flow sort of peaks in the valleys of the tale, and they're able to align their blinks so that they fall right in the gaps, those little micro beats where nothing happens.

[Tamami Nakano]

Yes. We found that ring synchronization occurred at the conclusion of action by the actor, by Mr. Bing.

[Jad Abumrad]

She gave a bunch of Examples.

[Tamami Nakano]

One example is the empty street.

[Jad Abumrad]

There's a moment in the film, she says, where all you see is this empty street for just a few frames, just a beat. In that moment, everybody blinks. Or you know, when Mr. Bean walks into a room, closes the door. Right as the door finishes closing, everybody blinks.

[Robert Krulwich]

So these sound like rest stops. If they were the New Jersey Turnpike, this would be where you'd go in to get your coffee.

[Jad Abumrad]

Exactly.

[Robert Krulwich]

Say if it's an eyeball, you just blink.

[Interviewer]

One reason is that we don't want to miss very important point in the story. Tamami's hypothesis is that, you see, blinking is related to the punctuation, our ways of thinking. Maybe there is some kind of synchronization of the thinking of the editor or filmmaker that might, you see, make us blink at the same time.

[Jad Abumrad]

But still there's a why question here. Because why would we even need to do that to blink? And no one knows really. But it may be that we blink at all because we can only process life in chunks.

[Tamami Nakano]

Blink might be chunk. Make a chunking of the flow of information for effective processing. Information processing or effective memorizing in computer terms.

[Walter Murch]

It's like that moment when we saved a disk. There's enough information in our buffer, so to speak. And now we think, I've got to remember this. And that's at that moment that we blink.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's what Walter Murtz thinks. But who knows?

[Robert Krulwich]

So it's popping a new tape every time you blink. Yeah, because I noticed that culturally, when you feel that you're done, you know, enough changes over time. Like my daughter will watch a Cary Grant movie and the character played by Cary Grant will be in bed, throw off the covers, put his feet on the floor, get up and then walk to the door, the whole thing. And she's thinking like, come on, come on. She wants it to chunk and go, chunk and go. And so I don't know if she's blinking madly through this thing, but she's clearly frustrated because she no longer. I'm not sure that the chunking isn't an artifact of how you see when you're alive. When you're alive. Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

I wonder if the blink rates have changed over generations.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm sure they have.

[Jad Abumrad]

How would you even measure that? I guess you'd have to start now and just kind of measure into the future. And as a side note, they measured the time that we blink, the sort of cumulative time that we would blink, say through a two hour movie. Yeah, Each blink is somewhere around what is it like 200th of a second. So that means that every minute we're losing about six seconds to darkness, every 60 seconds. This is an average, of course. So in a two hour movie you're missing total 15 minutes.

[Robert Krulwich]

So in an 80 year life, you're missing two years.

[Jad Abumrad]

Two years of darkness, which you are.

[Robert Krulwich]

Thanks to your lovely brain, you are totally unaware of missing. Thank you Brad.

[Jad Abumrad]

Thank you Brad. I'm janapumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

And I'm Robert Colich.

[Jad Abumrad]

Radiolab is supported in part by the Sloan foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and one other. We have one other, the biggest one.

[Robert Krulwich]

Of them all, the National Science Foundation.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yes. Before we close, I just want to thank Tim Howard for production help on this podcast and I want to urge everyone listening right now, if you're only a podcast listener, I don't know, call your NPR station or check their website for listings because we might be on your radio right now.

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