Posted on 09/14/2009 12:52:15 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Sept 10, 2009 — In slapstick comedy, the fall guy gets the pie in the face when the clown in front of him ducks. It’s funny because most of us instinctively duck when we see something coming. But two recent experimental studies are revealing new automated capabilities built into the eye and brain that are quicker and more automatic than our reflexes or the brain’s visual center.
A team from the Canadian Institutes of Health, publishing in PNAS,[1] ran experiments on a subject that had damage to the visual cortex. They were surprised to learn that the subject could still avoid obstacles in the way during hand-reach experiments. Another experiment showed that the obstacle avoidance was nullified when a 2-second delay was introduced, providing “compelling evidence that these mechanisms can operate in ‘real-time’ without direct input from primary visual cortex (V1),” they said. What does this mean? The subject “was able to code the position of the obstacles despite being unaware of their presence.”
(for the rest of this amazing story, click excerpt link below)...
(Excerpt) Read more at creationsafaris.com ...
It sounds like much the same as reflexes that cause one to react by sending the signal to the spinal cord first because the distance is shorter, allowing the individual to react before feeling the pain, thus minimizing the damage from an injury.
“’Hit the ball’, he said....’You close your eyes as soon as the ball is on its way to you....but you hit it every time’”
It’s not as if your body complete forgets what it has seen once you close your eyes. It guesses where the ball’s going to end up. Plus, you have other senses.
I’d try to keep my eyes open, anyway. You know what they say, “keep your eyes on the ball.” Gives you the greatest likelihood of contact.
Alright, that’s it.
When Malcolm wakes up I’m kicking him again.
He’ll bite you. Hard. He’ll sink his fangs into your ankle.
What are we to make of this? René Descartes died, didn’t he?
As bgill points out, "Your eyes have to see something before your brain processes it and then it takes time for your muscles to move away from danger." The just-so story fails to consider the possibility that the linkage from "eye" to "muscle" predates the brain.
There’s always that sort of low level processing going on - it’s the only way we’re able to drive or throw and catch a ball. I like to say that we have the ability to perform amazing feats of calculus built right in.
Good thing we never have to “show our work”.
It’s still all one fuctionally integrated body working together so that our spirits can interface with the material world :o)
It makes sense, the eye and optic nerve represent a lot of brain/nerve tissue. Add in the corpus callosum and there is the possibility of processing on the fly.
I’m surprised, though, that the eye system could connect to “body functions” that well. The nerves leave the eye, meet at the corpus callosum, and don’t make many detailed connections until they get to the brain’s vision processing units in the occipital lobe.
that was after the eyes evolved form mtant skin cells called freckles. Actually, it was two freckles. Hence foth stereoscopic vision!
Viola!
Maybe her eyes and her brain were in an argument at the time :o)
Reflexes operate like this: the sensor sends a signal to the spinal cord. The spinal cord is able to send back an immediate instruction for very fast action, while the signal continues on its way to the brain for further processing.
Now, the eyes and optic nerve are in the head, above the spinal cord, so it does not probably operate in exactly the same way as a reflex. However, I’m pretty sure the optic nerve gets pre-processed by the brain stem or cerebellum before the sight gets to the awareness centers.
“Over-actor...”
Actually that's pretty funny if you think about where I live.
She wins. You lose.
/official humblegunner-Allegra love_hate relationship judge...
Damn.
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