Phantom Limb Syndrome and the Mirror Box

After seeing the rubber hand video, I started thinking about phantom limb syndrome which can occur after a person has an amputation. I found a video about a man who is missing an arm, yet "experiences" a sensation of pain in the place where his hand would be. The video explains how the brain does not really know that the limb is no longer there and so sends signals directed toward his hand, trying to clench it. If this man did have a hand, his muscles would send feedback to the brain telling him to slow down the motion, however since he has no hand, the brain sends more signals resulting in a positive feedback loop. The solution is a mirror box. The man places the hand he does have in a box with a mirror, and his hand is reflected so it looks as if he has two. The ultimately tricks the brain with visual feedback and relieves the pain felt. This illusion shows us how easily the brain can be deceived, and emphasizes how our sensations can be psychological.

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Negative Afterimage

Reber Shukri Professor Vaughn Negative afterimage is a stimulus which elicits a positive image. In order to experience this, one can look at a bright source of light and then look away to a dark area. The way negative afterimage works is when the eye's photo-receptors which are the rods and cones adapt to over stimulation and lose sensitivity. The photo-receptors which are constantly exposed to the same stimulus will fatigue their supply of photo pigment, resulting a decrease in signal to the brain. The way negative afterimage connects to perception is because of bottom up processing where the stimulus influences what we perceive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szy8iNCljlQ <Link to the video

Illusions that Confuse Multiple Senses

In this video, several illusions are shown that deceive your senses. Illusions such as the Zöllner Illusion and the Poggendorff illusion confuse our bottom up processing by tricking our vision. However, our vision isn't the only sense that these illusions can confuse, blind individuals presented with raised versions of the same illusions are also confused by them. These illusions effect the visual and touch systems by confusing our bottom up processing by tricking out sight and touch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je1mkzRU5rc&t=64s

How Your Expectations Mess With The View of The Present

In this video the waiters and waitresses give the customers a water menu with fancy different names. They then taste the differently packaged water. Since they were convinced that they were actually different types of water, they were comparing them and actually tasted a difference. The reasoning behind this is, since they were told that they were different, they believed what they were told. They perceived what they expected it to be. This is is an example of how your expectations mess with your view of the present. Therefore, they tasted the water to be different but in reality it was tap water the whole time in different bottles.

Philosophy of Perception

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