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Active communication between researchers and society is necessary for the scientific community's involvement in developing science-based policies. This need is recognized by governmental and funding agencies that compel scientists to increase their public engagement and disseminate research findings in an accessible fashion. Storytelling techniques can help convey science by engaging people's imagination and emotions. Yet, many researchers are uncertain about how to approach scientific storytelling, or feel they lack the tools to undertake it. Here we explore some of the techniques intrinsic to crafting scientific narratives, as well as the reasons why scientific storytelling may be an optimal way of communicating research to nonspecialists. We also point out current communication gaps between science and society, particularly in the context of neurodiverse audiences and those that include neurological and psychiatric patients. Present shortcomings may turn into areas of synergy with the potential to link neuroscience education, research, and advocacy. 

Troxler fading is described as the perceptual disappearance of stationary images, often in the visual periphery, during sustained fixation. Microsaccades have been shown to counteract and reverse the perceptual fading of contrived stimuli such as Gabor patches (Costela, McCamy, Macknik, Otero‐Millan, & Martinez-Conde, 2013; McCamy, Macknik, & Martinez‐Conde, 2014; McCamy et al., 2012). Here we demonstrate that microsaccadic dynamics similarly drive equivalent perceptual alternations in representational art. This approach can help deepen our understanding of masterpieces such as Claude Monet's “Impression, Sunrise” (“Impression, soleil levant”), in which a red sun rises over two small fishing boats in a port. Though the red sun appears perceptually brighter than the surrounding sky, Livingstone (2002) showed that the sun and the surrounding sky have the same approximate luminance. Equiluminance between an object and its background is known to facilitate Troxler fading. Accordingly, Safran & Landis (1998) noticed that staring at the sailor in Monet’s painting results in perceptual fading of the sun. We set out to assess whether the perceptual fading of the sun in “Impression, Sunrise” depends on microsaccade production. If so, it would indicate that the vanishing of the sun in Monet’s masterpiece represents an instantiation of Troxler fading in art.