Trapped in the Pearl: Vermeer’s Optical Projections and the Mechanics of the Sustained Attentional Loop

ASIN:B0HNL8WH8J Abstract This article investigates the relationship between optical representation, visual attention and cognitive autonomy through Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.

A more productive account treats sustained attention as a relationship whose meaning depends on the agency and purposes of the participant.

Recognising that asymmetry is the first condition of protecting autonomy without condemning the pleasures of sustained attention itself.

Karlsson, H. (2025) ‘Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself and bloom’, Escaping Flatland, 4 September.

(2026) ‘Sustained attention is more closely related to long-term memory than to attentional control’, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 38(7), pp.