Neurobiology and Behavior, Week 11

Our brain is a distributive system. It does not have one picture or one essence that determines our functioning. It is a large system of connections and cooperation in which all parts are important but in which not one is ‘vital’ in the sense that there is not one specific structure that contains our identity. Learning this was not difficult because I did not understand it or did not appreciate its positive effects. The reason why it is so hard to understand it is because from my day to day life I DO see one picture. I DO experience myself as a singular essence, ‘a me’ who is there in a reality that accepts what is out there to be the truth. So now my question is: where does this sense come from? We have a structure that actually works pretty well so why not experience it that way? I can’t really imagine what this would be like but why do we create the experience of one picture if it is not there? Where does this sense come from and why does it overrule the actual input from the different systems that we get?  The I-function seems to miss a lot and not to have a physical place in the brain, so then why is it the only way in which I can think about myself?

In class we discussed visual ambiguity and how ambiguity is never eliminated. It briefly came up that ambiguity is connected to the "crack" in understanding, referring to the loopy science model we established earlier in the semester. The crack is what allows us the see from a new perspective in order to create a new summary of observations. Visual ambiguity can provide this new perspective; if we see something differently we can create new observations. 

From what we learnt in Week 12, I would say mood is also a source of visual ambiguity and mood fluctuation is a reason why ambiguity is never eliminated. 

One of the questions that this class sparked in my mind is one that I have heard before, if we all see things differently, how do we know that what one person thinks is red is the same as what another person thinks is red? Is there any way to have a standard in terms of color? Or to determine that what we see is the same?

One of my friends is a fine arts major who is currently taking a painting class, one day she said to me, "I don't see white anymore, when I look at a wall it is never just white. Everything is full of color." When I look at a white wall, I see a white wall. We both look at the same object and see different colors, a perfect example of the subjectivity of sight and how the brain processes input. Is her ability to see color in white because she has more sensitive cones in her eye, or has she just trained herself to see it because of her painting class?

The role of science is to provide us with a firm ground on which we can actually stand together.  We, coming from a different background and having a different brain from each other's, have different opinions and view of the world.  But if we did not enroll this class, or learned about objective theories taught in science courses, we would not know how our brains construct different worlds and how the truth of each individuals varies. 

Indeed, I think science with its certain objectivity bind us together and put us in the situation where we feel that we need to share our own stories and make new observations to add onto the pre-existing human knowledge.  Just like the Bible, i think sciecne is one example of good textbook that we all look at and make argument for/against.

In chemistry we are taught that colors are created bydifferent wavelengths of light hitting the retina. The different colors arecreated by excited electrons releasing energy as they fall to lower energystages. I never thought that there was any difference between the way in lightin produced and the way in which the human perceives color. When I look at arainbow it seems impossible that a very limited types of cones are actuallyinterpreting all the colors that I perceive. This concept is akin to the brainactually seeing all objects as the boundaries of edges.

Again, I was also surprised by how much the brain just“makes up” as it goes. The fact that humans have two eyes is veryevolutionarily favorable because it allows humans to have better depth perceptionand a better range of vision. But, on the other hand, the fact that we have twoeyes means that the brain has two conflicting views of the world every secondof the day. Because of the conflicting views that the two eyes present, we haveto make a view of the world that is the “best” compromise. The most frustratingpart of this is that we will never know what reality really looks like.

I’m also interested in what makes certain colors moreappealing to people. For instance, I’ve heard that American’s prefer the colorblue. Is color favoritism simply a cultural phenomenon? (the colors of the USAare red, white, & blue) Or is there a neurobiological component to this? 

On Friday my alarm went off early because I forgot to reset it. When I woke and walked across the room to turn it off I remembered our discussion about seeing color. If I didn't think too hard about it, I realized that I wasn't really seeing color. I looked at my pink bedspread and though about how it shouldn't look pink. I was making it that way because I knew it was. 

I don't think it matters whether I am really seeing it a certain way or whether I am remembering it. Even though there is a difference for my eyes, my mind makes it so. I'm not sure whether I dream in color or not, I can't be sure. Supposing that I do dream in color, where is that color coming from. How do we remember what we perceive?

It seems like what we perceive must be heavily linked to what we remember. It is practically impossible to feel like I'm seeing something for the first time. How does our brain know when it is seeing something for the first time? 

Are we seeing differently all the time or are we always seeing what we expect to see? Are we made to ignore subtle differences?  We are so programmed to construct cohesive images in our mind. While memory would seem to operate like a photograph, what we have discussed about the brain's constructions so far makes the mind more of a storyteller. Our perceptions are easily fooled and easily adaptable, so much so that it becomes hard to notice differences in what we perceive against our expectations and assumptions.

It is interesting to think about certain visual art forms (like painting) in terms of our conversations concerning the perception of colour. If colour perception is a function of light, then the painter, in a sense, becomes (among other things) a manipulator of wavelengths. Does this idea edify our consumption of art?

Differing aesthetic judgments about art could be accounted for by the fact that people percieve colours differently, especially when it comes to relationships between colours.

Also, this week got me thinking (once again) about how individual our experiences of reality truly are. We discussed how head position, eye position, object position, distance from object, and whether or not one eye is closed affect how and object is percieved. In this way it is highly unlikely, if not entirely impossible that two people will ever see the same exact thing upon looking at the same object.

The idea that colors are made up by the brain is indeed an interesting concept. This idea has always fascinated from when I first learned about color blindness in 7th grade. If colors are made up in the mind, does this mean that everyone can potentially have a different idea of what "red" or any other color looks like? Could I perceive a certain light intensity differently than someone else but we would still be calling it the same color of "red"?

Also, the idea of color being constructed in the mind can also be confirmed by what we know of synaesthesia. People with color-grapheme synaesthesia see colors that are not physically present when they see a certain letter/grapheme that does not appeared to be colored to non-synaesthetics. Thus, this shows that the mind is fully capable of creating colors that appear to be of the physical world. 

What we see is not what is out there. We saw some examples of the brain making different guesses of what could be out there. What interests me is how the brain can combine guesses and information from different structures to create new ways of seeing. I find it amazing that by having two eyes that create different images the brain simply concluded that thus there should be dept and looks for information to support that guess in other senses as well as monocular evidence. When talking about these observations that the brain makes and how it uses them in comparison to each other I also think that learning is an important factor. When I was small I could never see the images hidden in the stereogram. It would drive me crazy; I would stare at the book for hours trying to see the hidden images. When I look at a stereogram today I do however see the images appear. It takes me some time and effort but in the end I can see the images coming out to me. It is as if you look into a different world or dimension that was not there before. Learning and practice thus do seem to have an impact in creating new guesses that the brain can make.  

I thought it was really interesting how we only have three cones that allow us to see infinite number of colors. My question is then what happens when you only have two cones or just one? My guess would be that you would be able to see only limited number of colors. Another question is how color blindness works? Also, are there people who cannot see yellow but see two separate colors instead?