Dual Vision Centers In The Brain

[nicfit212]

This article has some interesting factoids about how the brain processes what you see.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17888475/site/newsweek

Just as the mouse brain is a lizard brain "with some extra stuff thrown on top," Linden writes, the human brain is essentially a mouse brain with extra toppings. That's how we wound up with two vision systems. In amphibians, signals from the eye are processed in a region called the midbrain, which, for instance, guides a frog's tongue to insects in midair and enables us to duck as an errant fastball bears down on us. Our kludgy brain retains this primitive visual structure even though most signals from the eye are processed in the visual cortex, a newer addition.

[shadetree]

Interesting. It makes me wonder how much more efficent we could be if our senses were better integrated.

I wish the article was a little more in depth. I would like to know more about this might effect our preception of what we see vs what we think we see. I guess like most magazine articles it's a tease to get us to want to buy the book. Which I might do.

[folsoml]

I would like to know more about this might effect our preception of what we see vs what we think we see.

I would be curious about this as well, as the two are usually vastly different from each other. Two people standing in the same place, watching the same thing, from the same angle, will have two very different versions of what they saw. I always thought it was funny that courts/juries put so much credence on "eye witness testimony", when it is often the worst kind of evidence.