The Visual System

Question 1

What is seeing vs perceiving?

Answer 1

• sensory system (white light, black light): the eye and exactly what we sense from our environment

Question 2

What is the perceptual system?

Answer 2

• the brain
• how we put together what we sense into a visual picture ~ figuring out what we are seeing

Question 3

What is Balint’s Syndrome?

Answer 3

• results from parietal lesions

Question 4

what are some symptoms for balint’s syndrome?

Answer 4

• ocular apraxia: difficultly shifting gaze, fixating, following movement - glaze tends to wander
• optic ataxia: inability to reach for items under visual guidance
• simultagnosia: unable to focus on more than one thing at a time (visually)

Question 5

What is Prosopagnosia?

Answer 5

• inability to identify familiar faces
• can identify the person by voice
• can identify gender, age, and emotions of faces
• led to the FFA debate

Question 6

What was the FFA debate?

Answer 6

• Expert vs. face area
• scientist argue that the FFA is not sensitive to faces, but instead is sensitive to identification of things that we can expertly identify
• we’ve all seen so many faces that we are effectively “face experts”

Question 7

What is greebles?

Answer 7

• train people about the different types and check their activation
• major problem: they are face-like

Question 8

How does the eye work? - 5

Answer 8

• key part: retina ~ can’t see without it
• translate light waves into an electrical signal our brain can process
• concave: object on retina is translated upside-down
• photoreceptors: rods and cones
• optic disk/optic nerve: area in the retina where nerves and blood vessels exit the eye and forms a blind spot
• fovea: area in center of retina

Question 9

What are the 4 main types of visual processing neurons?

Answer 9

• 1) ganglion: