Brain complexity: motion and vision (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, November 19, 2015, 16:06 (3292 days ago) @ dhw

There are two pathways to interpret motion:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151118180544.htm-"A new study reveals how the brain understands motion and still objects to help us navigate our complex visual world-***-"Our brain's visual system consists of a "where" (dorsal) pathway and a "what" (ventral) pathway. A normally function brain can imply motion from still pictures, such as the speed line in cartoons being interpreted as motion streaks of a still object. However, patients with lesions to the dorsal pathway know where objects are but have difficulty recognizing them, while patients with lesions to the ventral pathway have trouble recognizing objects but no problem locating them.-***-"The Dartmouth researchers studied neural activity to understand how the brain processes motion in still pictures of animate and inanimate objects. Their findings showed that the brain may process motion differently based on whether it is animate motion or inanimate motion. This suggests the brain not only categorizes objects into animate versus inanimate, but it knows the location of objects based on whether they are animate or inanimate.-"'Our findings suggest the brain's two visual pathways interact with each other instead of being separate when processing motion and objects," Lu says. "To fully understand a complex scene when multiple objects moving at different speed, the brain combines the motion signal with the knowledge of how a particular object will move in the world."-Comment: I view this as the brain using its background of stored information to help us, not control us.