Brain Research - LTCY 199 - Summer 2009 -

1. Vision Trumps All of The other Senses

2. “We Don’t See With Our Eyes We See With Our Brain” What does this sign really say ? Are you sure about that, look a little closer, are you still sure?

3. Our Visual Analysis Many steps are involved Retina first assembles photons into little movie-like structures. Visual cortex processes these streams, some registering color, motion etc. All the many streams collapse into two giant streams: Ventral stream- recognizes what a object is and the color. Dorsal Stream- recognizes the location of an object and if it is in motion. We then combine all that information back together so we can see.

4. Vision And The Brain VISUAL CORTEX- IS A BIG PIECE OF NEURAL ACERAGE AND THE VARIOUS STREAMS THAT FLOW INTO THE SPECIFIC PARCELS THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF PARCELS AND MOST HAVE SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS SOME ONLY SEE DIAGONAL LINES,SOME ONLY COLOR INFORMATION IN A VISUAL SIGNAL, SOME ONLY EDGES OR MOTION. DAMAGE TO ANY OF THESE COULD CAUSE TERRIBLE PROBLEMS. Visual cortex

5. Is What We See What Is Actually There? WE EXPERIENCE OUR VISUAL ENVIRONMENT AS A FULLY ANALYZED OPINION ABOUT WHAT THE BRAIN THINKS IS OUT THERE WE SEE WHAT OUR BRAIN TELLS US WE SEE AND IT’S NOT 100% ACCURATE. Did you count three? The reason they look like more different colors is because our brain judges the color of an object by comparing it to surrounding colors. In this case, the stripes are not continuous as they appear at first glance. The orange stripes don’t go through the "blue" spiral, and the magenta ones don’t go through the "green" one. On the next slide is a zoomed in copy so maybe you can convince yourself there really areonly 3 different colors: magenta, green, blue and orange.

6. This is the color of the blue and green spirals, there is no blue spiral they are actually both green.

7. Our Brain Is In Control Not Our Eyes! OUR BRAIN HELPS US CREATE PERCIEVED REALITY-SEEING THINGS THAT MAY NOT ACTUALLY BE THERE YOU SEE WHAT THE BRAIN WANTS YOU TO SEE. THE BRAIN IGNORES THE LACK OF VISUAL INFORMATION RATHER THAN CALCULATING WHATS MISSING THEREFORE NOT GETTING 100% WHATS THERE. AN EXTREME EXAMPLE OF THIS WOULD BE CHARLES BONNET SYNDROME.

8. “Visual Inputs can often time trump your highly trained senses” In a study done by a group of brain researchers in Europe focused on wine tasters, red food coloring was added to white wine to make it look like red wine. When the wine tasters tasted the food-colored wine, they described it as having all the same characteristics of true red wine, when actually what they were tasting was white wine. Their minds were fooled by what they saw. “The nose smells what the eye sees”

9. Vision Is Dominant Vision takes up half of everything we do and takes up half of the brains resources. Without vision we wouldn’t be doing a whole lot of anything. (would u rather be blind or deaf?) Vision is our most dominant sense. Which monkey would you rather be?

10. Pictures vs. Text Hear a piece of information, and three days later you'll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you'll remember 65%. WHEN IT COMES TO MEMORY THE MORE VISUAL INPUT THE MORE LIKELY IT IS TO BE RECONGINIZED AND RECALLED. THIS IS CALLED PSE OR PICTORIAL SUPERIORITY EFFECT. NO MATTER HOW EXPERIENCED A READER YOU ARE YOU WILL STILL STOP AND PONDER INDIVIDUAL TEXTUAL FEATURES THROUGHOUT MANY TEXTS YOU READ THROUGHOUT OUR LIFE. OR SMILE Which will you remember better the picture or word SMILE ?

11. Vision As a Tool =] which did u notice first? Vision is the best single tool we have for learning. For visual learners this is an very important tool. We pay special attention to color, size and motion as evident in everyday life.

12. “If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.” -Lyall Watson HeartMath LLC (2007). HeartQuotes™: Quotes of the Heart. Retrieved July 10, 2009 from , Web site: http://www.heartquotes.net/Brain.html

13. Works Cited: Book: Medina, J. (2008). Brain Rules. Seattle, Washington: Pear Press. Journal article: Franz, V.H. ,Hesse, C. ,Kollath, S. (2009). Visual illusions, delayed grasping, and memory: No shift from dorsal to ventral control.. Neuropsychologia, 47(6) , 1518-1531. Internet resources: Medina, J. (2009). Brain Rules. Retrieved July 10, 2009 from , Web site: http://brainrules.net/vision Plait, P. (2009). The blue and the green. Retrieved July 10, 2009 from , Web site: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/24/the-blue-and-the-green/ HeartMathLLC (2007). HeartQuotes™: Quotes of the Heart. Retrieved July 10, 2009 from , Web site: http://www.heartquotes.net/Brain.html Dr Fink, A (2006). What is Unique About The Sense of Vision?. Retrieved July 10, 2009 from , Web site: http://eyedoctor.homestead.com/Senses.html Royal National Institute of Blind People (2009). Charles Bonnet Syndrome. Retrieved July 10, 2009 from , Web site:http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/PublicWebsite/public_rnib003641.hcsp#P2_23