system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What's happening when my eyes keep moving through text on a page even when I'm distracted and thinking about something else?

Are the "eyes moving" and "paying attention to the words I'm seeing" processes separate?
gpt
This has to do with your memory. There's three basic types of memory: sensory, short term and long term. Sensory memory only lasts for a few seconds and if you're giving attention to what you're looking at, it's sent to your short term memory. A good example of sensory memory is how you see a flipbook as a moving image instead of many single choppy images. This is why you see the words but they just seem to disappear, they're not being sent to your short term memory and are lost.