4 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2023
    1. Although Virgil, MM and others like them certainly possess a rudimentary form of vision, decades of visual deprivation may never be completely redeemable. The human brain has an amazing capacity for plasticity, but there are some things that it cannot do. MM will likely never see the way that we see.

      // Gradients of perceptual experiences of reality - The sense impaired teach us something fundamental about human nature. - The majority of non-sense-impaired people create the cultural norms of reality - but this reality can be very different for the sense impaired - Our reality is, to a large extent constructed from by our brain and depends on critical sensory inputs - But what is the brain itself, this magical organ that makes sense of reality? - The answer is going to vary depending on the subject experiencing it as well

    2. MM's visual capacities continue to improve, but he also remains somewhat uncomfortable with his new sense. As a blind person, MM became extremely proficient at skiing, with the help of a guide to give him oral directions. After his eyesight was restored, skiing frightened him. The trees, snow, slopes, people -- everything whizzed by him, chaotic and uninterpretable. After much practice, he is now a moderate sighted skiier -- but when he really wants to go fast and feel confident, he closes his eyes.

      // In Other Words - when sensory organs fail while we are young - we may construct different interpretations, and therefor experiences of our perceived realities - and adapt to them effortlessly. - If not for social stigma from the normative population, they would not know the difference - once we've adapted to sensory abnormalities, - a return to the normative way of experiencing reality via some medical intervention - that corrects a deficient sensory modality - is not guarantied to create the normative perceptual experience ordinary people have

    3. There is a window of opportunity in youth, often called a critical period, during which the brain can best form neural connections that correspond both to retinal images and to practical experience. During the critical period for the visual cortex, normal visual input is required to wire everything correctly. If input is missing during this period, the brain's links will probably not be built correctly. In fact, brain tissue ordinarily used in visual processing might even be taken over by other systems, perhaps tactile or olfactory systems. Some of MM's visual abilities lend further support to the theory that he missed a critical period of visual development. He is quite good at visual tasks that involve motion. Tasks that stumped him at first often became solvable if motion was incorporated into them. He became able to detect the circular patterns in random noise if the patterns were moving. And he began to see the "square with lines" as a cube if the lines moved, and the cube appeared to be rotating. At the end of their evaluations, the researchers saw some patterns emerging in MM's visual abilities and deficiencies. His ability to detect and identify simple form, color, and motion is essentially normal. His ability to detect and identify complex, three-dimensional forms, objects, and faces is severely impaired. The researchers have a tentative explanation for these variations in visual skill. Motion processing develops very early in infancy compared with form processing. By the time MM lost his eyesight in the accident, the motion centers in his brain were probably nearly complete. So when he regained some eyesight in his forties, those connections in the brain were ready to go. The parts of the brain that process complex shapes, however, do not develop until later in childhood, so MM's brain likely missed its chance to establish those particular brain connections. The authors also propose that our brains may retain the ability to modify and refine complex form identifications throughout life, not just throughout childhood. New objects and faces are continually encountered throughout life, and our visual processing centers must be able to adapt and learn to see new shapes and forms. MM's brain never had the chance to learn.

      // summary - MM could perform better if motion was involved - It is known that motion processing develops very early in infancy, whilst form processing occurs much later - the researchers hypothesized that when MM had his accident, he had already experienced enough motion processing to be familiar with it, but had not had any opportunity to perform form processing yet. - He missed the early opportunity and other brain functions took over those plastic areas, crowding out the normally reserved functional development

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    4. By far the most difficult tasks for MM involve three-dimensional interpretation of his environment. When an image is projected onto the retina, it is two dimensional, because the retina is essentially flat. When we are very young, our brains learn to use depth cues, such as shadows and line perspective, to see the three-dimensional world. Eventually, incorporating these cues into a coherent picture of the world becomes involuntary. Our ability to judge size correctly is one example of the brain's reinterpretation of two-dimensonal images. When a person walks away from us, the image of her becomes smaller and smaller on our retina. We know that people do not actually shrink as they move away, however. The brain combines the shrinking retinal image with perspective and depth cues from the surroundings, and we "decide" that the person is moving away. When MM lost his sight when he was three years old, his brain probably had not yet constructed the connections that incorporate separate perceptions into one combined perception. When a person walks away from MM, he has to remind himself that the person is not actually shrinking in size!

      // Constructing 3D interpretation of visual information - most adults take for granted that an "object" has a fixed "size" - this depends on learning how to synchronize depth cues and shrinking retinal image size.at an early age - when we lose that ability, it dramatically impacts our perceptual construction of vision

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