Saturday, March 22, 2008
Brain Science
(7)
We are all interested in 'brain science' of course, so I thought I'd mention anecdotally that I have noticed - over the last few months - that my brain always responds to familiar visual scenes which have been modified in some way. Specifically: I keep the whiskey in a certain small cabinet above the stove. The cabinet is almost always closed. But on the occasions when I remove the booze bottle from the cabinet I leave the door open. The door remains open throughtout the evening until I have made the determination that booze will no longer be needed. I then replace the booze bottle and close the door.
But in the meantime - hours long - I am always irritated (alerted) by that open door whenever I leave the kitchen. My visual brain signals me that something is amiss even though the image of that cabinet door never enters my primary field of view but remains instead in the peripheral field. Can this be a 'rods and cones' thingee? I suppose so... Interestingly, a small part of my brain alerts another (larger) part of my brain to a 'known' situation, and my 'whole brain' responds emotionally to something it already knew. How weird is that?
Time to wrap this up. Nighty-night!
We are all interested in 'brain science' of course, so I thought I'd mention anecdotally that I have noticed - over the last few months - that my brain always responds to familiar visual scenes which have been modified in some way. Specifically: I keep the whiskey in a certain small cabinet above the stove. The cabinet is almost always closed. But on the occasions when I remove the booze bottle from the cabinet I leave the door open. The door remains open throughtout the evening until I have made the determination that booze will no longer be needed. I then replace the booze bottle and close the door.
But in the meantime - hours long - I am always irritated (alerted) by that open door whenever I leave the kitchen. My visual brain signals me that something is amiss even though the image of that cabinet door never enters my primary field of view but remains instead in the peripheral field. Can this be a 'rods and cones' thingee? I suppose so... Interestingly, a small part of my brain alerts another (larger) part of my brain to a 'known' situation, and my 'whole brain' responds emotionally to something it already knew. How weird is that?
Time to wrap this up. Nighty-night!
