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Saba Ashraf's picture

Reality/optical illusions

            I also found the optical illusions very interesting during class and the illustration of different objects moving through a 3d drawing of the cube in class was a good example of the fact that the nervous system has the ability to interpret objects in different ways. I think the fact that people’s brains see and interpret things differently adds to the fact that we are all different and because of this, our “stories” of what is actually out there differ to some degree. This relates to the fact that we aren’t limited to what’s actually there because of the creativity we have and if different individuals interpret things differently, it only adds to the variation of creativity. I also agree that we constantly use cues to check our sense of reality. For example, we may not have to constantly make sure whether an individual is real or not like the example of the schizophrenic in class, but we may check to see if others found something as surprising as we do by their reactions. I often see people look to one another when something crazy or surprising has happened to “check” if others also reacted the same way. I found the discussion about the striate cortex and the loss of the ability to see everything on the left of the fovea quite interesting as well. In particular, the fact that people with this condition are able to locate where the lights are coming from was amusing, but made sense considering the picture in the head is not in the I-function.    

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