Reply to comment

Yesterday, I had to spend all day driving to Connecticut to pick up my car and while driving back I was contemplating vision and what I was seeing and what my brain was “filling in.”  It amazed me to think that the other cars, the road, my steering wheel, everything was a just points of light, two dimension images on my retina that appeared to me as three dimensional images.  Now I am wondering where my blind spots are and as I maneuver around my world try to image all of the possibilities that are available with this.  I know that we are only studying the vision sensory system but this has made me realize that all sensory systems must be working together.  Obviously corollary discharge and photoreceptors are coming into play just I never realized the extent to which they are.  If our brain is effectively filling in blank spots it must communicate with our sense of touch so that if we feel something our brain must signal to us that we see it.  The same must be true with hearing and smell.  If we see a door slam out of the corner of our eye that we must hear the sound too.  Perhaps illusions (like magical illusions) or hallucinations are signals that our brain is sending to our eyes “we see this image” but our sense of touch is not keeping up that’s why we can pass our hand through the image and not feel anything.  I am beginning to think that perhaps many forms of psychosis can be explained this way.  If the corollary discharge in a individuals is not regulated properly they may hear and see things that are not there such as in schizophrenia, is their brain effectively making up bad “fill-ins?”  Just curious if anyone can think of any other disorders that may be the result of this sensory system make up.