Schizophrenic Brains Not Fooled by Optical Illusion


	Schizophrenic Brains Not Fooled by Optical Illusion

janekl

4-8-2009 8:28 AM

291 views

tags:

brain, science, schizophrenia, illusions

janekl says:

Maybe normality is just a wide-spread hallucination?

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/ca9bb1ce-b638-4aa8-afad-a58c49cf497b/CBABF25D-90E2-445F-BAE6-7C4C5A6F389E/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/schizoillusion.html" href="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/schizoillusion.html" style="font-size: 11px;">blog.wired.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/schizoillusion.html"><div align="center"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/blog.wired.com/img/2A1506C9-9A97-4B42-98EA-3B25E54339F2" alt="Mask" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/schizoillusion.html"><P>Schizophrenia sufferers aren't fooled by an optical illusion known as the “hollow mask” that the rest of us fall for because connections between the sensory and conceptual areas of their brains might be on the fritz. </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/schizoillusion.html"><P>In the hollow mask illusion, viewers perceive a concave face (like the back side of a hollow mask) as a normal convex face. The illusion exploits our brain's strategy for making sense of the visual world: uniting what it actually sees — known as bottom-up processing — with what it expects to see based on prior experience — known as top-down processing. </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/schizoillusion.html">But patients with schizophrenia are undeterred by implausibility: They see the hollow face for what it is.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/schizoillusion.html"><P>Schizophrenics aren't the only ones who see the concave face — people who are <A href="http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/33/2/168">drunk</A> or <A href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0N-475JC0F-33C&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=00d08c8c355fd6f09ad6b45be663a0a5">high</A> can also 'beat' the illusion. A similar disconnect between what the brain sees and what it expects to see may be occurring during these drug-induced states.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/CBABF25D-90E2-445F-BAE6-7C4C5A6F389E/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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