searchlight

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“
It is suggested that in the brain the internal attentional searchlight, proposed by Treisman and others, is controlled by the reticular complex of the thalamus (including the closely related perigeniculate nucleus) and that the expression of the searchlight is the production of rapid bursts of firing in a subset of thalamic neurons.

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Definitions (5)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun An apparatus containing a light source and a reflector for projecting a high-intensity beam of approximately parallel rays of light.
  2. noun The beam of light so projected.
  3. noun A flashlight.

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Examples (50)

  • One minute the sky was like a feather bed and the next the blasted lamp shone out like a searchlight, and there was me and Elginbrodde on the brow of the cliff looking like a couple of lighthouses ourselves. —  The Tiger In The Smoke - Allingham, Margery - Albert Campion 15
  • But this time the searchlight was surrounded by a hedge of shining silver points—the discharge mechanism for the lightning is going to do us any stead of the opening running right through into the ship, was a tight bulkhead, with the connections for the gravity-beam rocket-mechanism leading through it. —  Wonder Story Annual - 1950
  • A moment later a searchlight was playing a flood of brilliance onto a scene which caused us to gasp incredulously. —  Wonder Story Annual - 1950
  • Another searchlight was switched on but it too was swiftly obscured. —  Wonder Story Annual - 1950
  • He was using it like a searchlight, but it was apparently giving out no light Had Tom Idle been able to see what Doc was doing, he wouldn't have been greatly enlightened. —  071 - Mad Mesa
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