The Unscientific Sciences *************************************** Note: This is a multi-threaded discussion. Please read the *Introduction* thread, if you haven't already, so that you know the main topic and format of these threads. *************************************** A. (to chapter) A2 What's With the Hole in Your Chest Doc? Last time in The Amazing Disappearing Finger thread I demonstrated the blindspot in our vision. The strange thing about the blindspot is that instead of seeing a gaping hole in our vision, our brain somehow fills in the gaps. In this thread I want to present another example of how our brains fills in gaps. This phenomena can be seen in what is known as scotomas. A scotoma is a blindspot in our vision. People have them for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's from damage to the eye, sometimes damage to the brain. Sometimes they temporarily appear with intense migraines. An old professor told me about a situation with someone having a scotoma... This person was suffering from intense migraines. He was sitting down in a doctor's office. When the doctor entered the room he stood in front of wallpaper that had line which ran at a diagonal angle. The person with the scotoma looked up at the doctor and reported that the doctor had a gaping hole in his chest. What happened was that the doctor's chest was in the vision hole (scotoma). The brain didn't know what was there so it saw one end of the diagonal lined wallpaper to the left of the doctor and the other end to the right of the doctor and then just connected the pattern. Ta-da no more chest. Much like what happened in the finger demo but at a larger scale. Because of this "filling-in" phenomena, people with scotoma's usually aren't aware that they have them. This can be the case with large scotoma's too. Sometimes the eye will react automatically to the hole and move around rapidly so that the brain can get the whole picture. Sometimes these eye movements aren't even known by the person.
Hm, this is very interesting, does the same thing happen to hearing? I believe, if so, i have scotomas of the hearing type. People will tell me "Yeah, and get the spare batteries out of my front seat too" and i'll hear "Yeah, don't forget the spatulas too." And other such things. Also, when talking, sometimes i SWEAR i'll say a given word,but the person i'm talking to says i didn't say that. Example, i was telling my friend a story.. "...So the girl said she'd be an hour, and to go walk around wal-mart or something until she's ready" Which is what i THOUGHT i said to my friend. I really said "wa-wa" instead of "wal-mart" When mym friends questioned me, i repeated "wa-wa", 3 times! This last phenomenon, the speaking thing, happens to me OFTEN. I think i'm sane, my hearing itself is alright, i'm fluent in spanish so my speech part of the brain can't be too messed up so... any ideas? thanks Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I get that all the time too. Did you have any speech difficulties when you were young? Maybe we just need to clean out our ears Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Seriously, if it bothers you, I'd check in with a doctor. I guess in terms of hearing, I wouldn't call blank spots scotomas necessarily. But yes you can lose sensitivity to certain ranges, especially when you get older. In terms of perception and filling-in the gaps, hearing works just like seeing. Take the telephone game as an example. One person whispers a message to another person and then that person to another person. After about 30 people, the original message can be very distorted. The gaps that weren't heard are filled-in with the most logical (for that person) words. So I imagine it's the same with all senses. I'm working with vision because 1) we are visually oriented creatures and 2) it's a lot easier to demonstrate than other senses (especially over an online medium).
