Brain complexity: two eyes, single vision (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, July 24, 2015, 15:50 (3410 days ago) @ David Turell

We see as if we were a Cyclops with one eye. The brain combines both eye's views into one, although each of us has a dominant eye:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150723181244.htm-"According to Rokers, a group of neurons in the visual cortex called the striate cortex, or V1, is handling two sets of pictures from our eyes -- one view each from the left eye and the right eye. Move one step down the line to an area called V2, part of the extrastriate cortex, and the neurons have largely shifted to a single picture. The research clears up unsettled questions as to what purpose V2 serves in visual processing.-"The researchers tucked people in functional MRI machines, and had them peer into a prismatic device that showed each eye a different image. For example, the left eye would see a vertical black bar slightly to the right of center, while the right eye saw the bar slightly to the left of center.-"'The brain processes the two presented images like it would with any normal pair of images, and perceives them as a single bar in the center of the field of vision, but shifted slightly backwards in depth," Rokers says.-"Because the MRI results are sharp enough to discern the different brain activity signatures for each vertical bar, the researchers could compare brain activity when the bars were presented to each eye separately or both eyes together.-"'What we show is that in V1, that activity goes with the presented location -- some neurons see the left eye image, some the right eye image," Rokers says. "But in V2, the activity matches the perceived, centered location. V2 is working with the combined, cyclopean image.'"-How to find the your dominant eye: quickly point your finger at some object a short distance away. Without moving your hand close one eye and then the other. In only one eye will the finger be dead on. Romansh, any thoughts?