Exploring the interconnectedness of the senses and questioning our perception of the world based on expectations. Evolution of perception and how the brain adds information to the senses. The dominance of sight over hearing and the importance of lip reading. Chemical senses of smell and taste working together. Experience of the physical world and the question of illusions. Overlooked senses of proprioception and vestibular system.
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Quick takeaways
Perception is influenced by our expectations, blurring the boundaries between our senses.
The brain combines information from different senses by using cues like time and space proximity, with visual cues dominating hearing and taste and smell integrating through learned associations.
Deep dives
Processes of Perception
Perception is a complex web of processes influenced by our expectations, blurring the boundaries between our senses.
Reception and Perception
Perception involves the brain adding a vast amount of information to the signals received by our senses, constructing our perception of the world.
Integration of Senses
The brain combines information from different senses by using cues like time and space proximity. Visual cues can dominate hearing, while taste and smell integrate through learned associations.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss perception: how the brain reacts to the mass of data continually crowding it. Barry Stein's laboratory at Wake Forest University in the United States found that the shape of a right angle drawn on the hand of a chimpanzee starts the visual part of the brain working, even when the shape has not been seen. It has also been discovered that babies learn by touch before they can properly make sense of visual data, and that the senses of smell and taste chemically combine to give us flavour.Perception is a tangled web of processes and so much of what we see, hear and touch is determined by our own expectations that it raises the question of whether we ever truly perceive what others do.What governs our perception of the world? And are we correct to distinguish between sight, sound, smell, touch and taste when they appear to influence each other so very much?With Richard Gregory, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Experimental Psychology, Bristol University; David Moore, Director of the Medical Research Council Institute of Hearing Research, University of Nottingham; Gemma Calvert, Reader in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Bath.
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