Neurobiology and Behavior, Week 10

Although I was really fascinated by the lectures about perception/vision last week, I was most intrigued by the statements on evolution of perception.

In particular, I was intrigued by the lateral inhibition network of perception that stated that what we perceive (by sensory neurons) is quite different than the unconscious construction our brain puts forth to understand the inputs.  When in development does this filtering and construction by the brain develop?  How does this relate to perception development in similar organisms?

Also, it seems that with this notion of brain evolution, one tends to think of the human brain as the most advanced/complex.  Although evidence from the neocortex would suggest this (see my first paper), perhaps perception does not?  Could it be that other 'less complex' organisms in fact have more complex perception systems?  How should we evaluate which species has the most advanced/complex visual/perception system?

Quickly, this notion that the brain constructs images independent of the I-Function brings a whole new meaning to the saying "Caught red handed" and "I saw it with my own two eyes."   On another note, Recently I was having dinner with a friend and he began telling me about "The Secret: The Law of Attraction." Essentially the premise of this theory is that in life you can have whatever you want: if you call out to the universe, it, in due time, will respond-it always does, every single time. Now one of the key properties is visualization. In order to make the call out to the universe to get this desire fulfilled, one must visualize and truly see in their minds what it is that they want and focus intently on that. As I am still rather unfamiliar with this theory, I wonder just how much it aligns with or relates to our most recent class discussion about images being constructions of the brain? I mean clearly these visualizations do in fact involve the I-Function as they are intentional and premeditated, but how does the nervous system's own conjuring function, especially as this is a matter of seeing without literally using the eye of its photo receptors? For instance, I suppose that if one decides s/he wants Mr./Mrs. Right to come along, s/he must visualize a person whose face they know nothing of, in which case I imagine the brain kicks in to fill in the gaps. This is tricky because it's often easier to list the qualities and characteristics in a mate as opposed to physical features, but I imagine that it that would be precisely the area that there nervous system would be concerned with.

I am interested in the organ, eye.  And I am so glad that we talk about vision and its relationship with out brain.  Last week, I was surprised to know how our brain only recognizes the edge of the object and fills the blind spot with continous pattern.  I agree with Leah's notion that the reason why we humans go for only the edge is that otherwise, it would be too much information for us. 

To add onto that, I think our brain is very busy with relating the newly accepted information with many other things.  To make an analogy, we earlier learned that out of the three types of neurons(sensory, inter, and motor), inter neurons takes up the most part of our nervous system.  In the case of the edge and the brain, if our brain was to get all the information including the gaps within the edge, it would reduce its ability to think, interpret, and proceed.  In other words, we would be too overwhelmed and would lose our autonomy. 

So, i think it's for our benefit in which with the minimal amount of information that we need to get, we fully utilize it to connect with other stuffs such as making plan for the future, reflecting on the past experience, and creating curiosity about the object even further. 

I think most of the human history is made within our brain by great thoughts or interpretation, not by the actual facts or objects that are out there.  I think such leeway to differentiate or personalize the objectivity of the world makes this world more diverse, creative, unexpected, and beautiful. 

That's why there are great pianists, or other artists who play the song written by a single composer in their own ways with different emotions, etc. I like how our brain is always like a factory to create various stuffs based on the minimal information given.  Credit for interneurons.

I further want to know more about what and where in our body actually controls how much information we should receive. 

I also want to know if there is any disease in which a person cannot control the reception of limited information we need.  What if the brain fails to see only the edge.. is there such a disease?

This week in class we learned our vision and hearing depends on a combination of inputs other than just our eyes or our ears.  And that we can sometime "sense" when things are going to happen without a direct stimuli.  I'm trying to make a connection here to dreams in which in the future you think to yourself that you had dreamed that a certain situation would occur.  Is the mind able to create dreams that predict the future?  Since the mind is able to "sense" things, is it able to sense the future without any direct inputs of what the future has in store?  And then how is it able to piece together images that your have never seen before to create the future situation in the present? 

I agree with Crystal in that many things (objects, people, etc.) that people "see" are constructions of the brain. And, I'm sure we can all relate to the expereince of sitting up in your dorm room doing homework and while reading, something catches your attention out of the corner of your eye. You could swear that something was either in the corner or ran across the floor. Now, whether your first reaction is: "oh god, please don't be a mouse! or hmmmm, that's interesting," is irrelevant. The interesting thing about hallucinations & things catching one's eye is how does one's brain know that the object/thing/person is not really there?

We have all heard the expression: "it's your mind playing tricks on you." But, where do these tricks come from & why does the brain allow one's eyes to do this? There is a big difference between thinking that you saw something & "knowing" that you actually did in fact see something, so how does the brain differentiate, if it does?

I still can’t rap my mind around the fact that the onlything that we don’t actually see the objects in the world, but we only see theedges of objects. I had never thought about the world as simply changes in theintensity of light, but if I think about it now, it makes a lot of sense.

I also find it interesting that the brain is able to convert2-D images on the retina into the 3-D images that we perceive in our minds. Idon’t understand what process is going on and where this process is occurringthat is allowing the switch in dimensions. Is the image that is broadcastedonto the retina the image that is sent to the parts of the brain that deal withvision and then converted, or does this process occur in another area? Could itbe possible that the area of the brain that is involved with converting the 2-Dimage to the 3-D image is also connected to our sense of touch? We are able totouch and explore objects and understand that they do not exist in 2-D, so ourvisual cortex and the areas of the brain involved with touch communicate tocreate a more realistic picture of the world. If this is true, it would beinteresting to understand how newborns actually see the world without knowinghow the world is supposed to look.

Another interesting topic related to vision is blindsight.Blindsight occurs when an individual is able to recognize objects even if theyare unable to receive visual signals in a certain area. For instance, a man maynot be able to see anything in his right field of vision, but if a greencolored object is held on his right side, he will still be able to correctlyidentify the color of the object. To me, this phenomenon seems to be related tothe existence of the blind spot that all humans have. It may be possible thatthe brain is simply filling in the parts of the visual field that the man isunable to see because of damage to his eye, optic nerve, etc. Blindsight maywork by the same mechanisms that control the blind spot, only on a largerscale.

When thinking of seeing I first think of color rather then shape in my environment. I was surprised to learn that color vision came relatively late in our evolutionary tieline. We had grasping hands and forward facing eyes before we had the ability to see in color. No one is entirely certain why we developed the ability to see in color, some think that it aids in depth perception, others think that it was a way to distinguish between fruit that is underdeveloped and ripe. One professor even hazarded the guess that it had something to do with flowers.

In any event we still see primarily in line and black and white, we notice the outline of things first then fill in the colors in a somewhat haphazard fashion. what does color ad to our world now? What would it be like to be color blind or to have never developed the ability to see color in the first place? How does color change the way we feel, think and interact with our environment?

When we were discussing is the idea that the senses give our mind a picture, either a visual picture, an auditory picture, or one made up of information from other senses, like olfactory, taste, or tactile.   Your mind doesn’t have its own private pair of eyes, however. Therefore, the mind can’t be looking at the "picture" that the senses give.   So, it’s that all of our perception is driven/colored/guided by our own interests, needs, aims, and sometimes even biases--which is why we all perceive different things.

I wonder, then--and I'm not very educated in this subject at all--how this could be applied to things such as the No Child Left Behind Act, where every student is held to a new, higher level of accountability.  Isn't the perception of our brains, which is so different and varies from individual to individual, a bit contradictory to the entire purpose of this act?  It seems to me that education would fare better if it took into account the difference of perception that we learned from regarding how vision and brain work together.