Blog Post #3

The first activity that I did was called "Seeing more than your eye does." This study talks about the eye and how everyone's eyes have 'blind spots.' To actually show you where your blind spot is, there is a + on the left of the page and a big black dot on the right. You are supposed to cover your left eye, stare at the +, and slowly move closer to the computer screen. Eventually, you find your blind spot and the entire black dot will disappear. Your brain will then fill in the blind spot with the surrounding color of the screen, pattern, etc. I learned from this experiment that when your eyes don't send info to the brain, it basically makes up what you are seeing. This really surprised me because it just seems weird to me that the brain can just make things up like that on its own.
The second activity that I did was called "Ambiguous Figures." It talks about how what we see is basically just one interpretation of many. For example, they have pictures on the page and when looking at one of them, I immediately thought of a skull. Then, when I enlarged the photo, I could also see a woman looking in a mirror at herself. From this I learned that there are many different ways of seeing something, it is basically all in the eyes of the beholder.

One thing from this section that interested me was when neurosurgeons tried to cure epilepsy by splitting patients brain in half. I learned that this cured the patients of their seizures but the communication with their hands got all messed up. For example, Joe (the guy with 2 brains) was able to draw 2 different pictures simultaneously with his left and right hand.
I thought the theory of phrenology was also interesting. Apparently, back in the 1800s, scientists believed that bumps on our heads could show things about our character and mental abilities just by location or number of bumps. We have obviously come a long way in the study of the brain since then.
These things change the way I originally thought about the brain because, for one, I didn't think it was possible to live with your brain cut in 2. Also, it seems silly to me that people actually thought bumps on our head could determine how smart we are and I am glad to know that we have come farther with our knowledge than that today.

I really liked the video about the guy with 2 brains. I think it is really interesting how he can still function and live with the 2 halves of his brain severed. I think it would be sweet to be able to draw 2 different shapes at the same time. I also think it would be really annoying and somewhat crazy not to be able to process something that I saw out of my left eye.