FINAL BLOG ENTRY
Prior to taking this class, I was aware as to the fact that perception of senses was a complex process in every regard, but I had no idea the extent of how complex it truly is. Through this class, we have been able to study the numerous mechanisms that constitute the processes of perceiving sounds, touch, smell, taste, and vision. There are a variety of aspects that may be delved further into, in regards of how fascinating they truly are, such as the Phantom Limb Syndrome. It is unbelievable to process the idea that all of these items are taking place at once, and it is equally unbelievable to conceive of how much work is occurring inside our minds and bodies to successfully perceive anything from the smallest sound to the mind creating the feeling of an entirely missing limb, as observed in the aforementioned Phantom Limb Syndrome. It is difficult to grasp the fact that the cortexes of our brains can literally reshape itself as life continues in respect to all the events that we must deal with. However, one component of perception that is especially astounding in terms of how much work takes place without our realization is the perception of sight in regards to the biological processes that take place to achieve this sense, the manners in which it can subconsciously effect the everyday decisions of an individual, and its effects upon individuals with mental disabilities.
One must primarily focus upon the biological processes that take place so as to ensure a functioning sense of vision. These processes are so numerous and complex and are constantly in action, despite one’s realization of this, in order to provide individuals with the foremost mechanism of importance in terms of perceiving the world. Light travels through the lens of an eye, and the eye generally uses a process of accommodation to essentially alter the eye a bit to perceive what is being seen better. Light travels through the lens and the remainder of the eye until it reaches the retina, on the back of the eyeball. It then hits the photoreceptors on the back of the eye, and travels forward until it reaches the ganglion cells. When it hits these photoreceptors, the orientation and direction of the light can matter in regards to whether or not it is even perceived. There are simple, complex, and hypercomplex cells that take these aspects, as well as where the light is hitting the cell in terms of its “On” center or “Off” surround area, into consideration. These ganglion cells are the cells that actually send a signal to the brain through the optic nerve, despite the fact that they do not actually absorb these photons.
Light is absorbed as signals through cell-membrane receptors termed G Protein coupled receptors. An optical G Protein coupled receptor is known as rhodopsin, and is composed of two subunits: opsin and retinal. Opsin is the actual receptor portion of this G Protein coupled receptor, while retinal functions as a chromophore. Simply put, retinal serves as somewhat of a rope that wraps around opsin and keeps it in place, to ensure its ability to absorb these said photons. Absorption of a photon by opsin causes retinal to isomerizes, which thereby activates the receptor. Activation of this receptor complex changes its name from rhodopsin to metarhodopsin and causes it to diffuse down the cell membrane until it reaches its corresponding G Protein complex known as transducin, which consists of an alpha, beta, and gamma subunit. Upon its reaching this G Protein complex, the G protein complex is then activated, which in turn causes the GDP that is latched onto the alpha subunit of the protein complex to be converted to GTP. This conversion gives the complex the energy it needs to allow the breakage of the alpha+GTP subunit from the beta and gamma subunits, in order for this alpha subunit to diffuse down the cell membrane until it reaches its effector, which, in this case is cGMP phosphodiesterase. The activation of this effector, once the alpha+GTP subunit reaches it, causes the conversion of cGMP to GMP, which leads to closure of the cGMP gated channels that allow sodium ions to enter the cell. This brings about a hyperpolarization of the cell as no sodium ions can enter through these channels, which causes a halt in the sending of the glutamate neurotransmitter (2000). Essentially, when there is light, there is no neurotransmitter sent to the brain, and this is how an individual can perceive light. After this takes place, one must consider how vision is perceived in the actual brain, after the signal leaves the eyes. The occipital lobe, in the back of the brain, is the primary area for vision perception. Damage to this area can lead to blindness, or damaged sight.
One must also consider the variety of ways in which vision unconsciously effects the everyday actions and choices of individuals. Vision must be considered in regards to color, and color has the ability to strongly affect one’s appetite, perception of the taste of various foods, and the effect and perception of the environment. As research has illustrated, foods that are the color blue are likely to cause a loss in appetite. Weight loss experts typically in fact ask that those attempting to lose weight place a blue light in their refrigerators, eat from blue plates, or in an extreme case perhaps even color their food blue. Interestingly enough, this can be due to the ancestral avoidance of foods that were colored blue and purple as those were typically the poisonous ones. Also, as each sense has a pathway to the brain, sometimes these wires are crossed, so to speak. Due to this, a yellow-green color can produce a sour taste, a pink color can produce a sweet taste, and a grey color can produce a smoky taste. Also, due to the visual perception of color, the sensations of fatigue, danger, stress, and a loss of orientation may come about. Colors can stand out in the environment and alert individuals to important environmental cues (Morton). Colors are processed through the use of three cones, which gives respect to the term “trichromatic.” Short wavelength, middle wavelength and long wavelength cones are used perceive color, and if one is missing or damaged, this individual will not have normal color vision. Instead, they may have red-green colorblindness, due to a lack of M or L cones, or blue-yellow colorblindness due to a lack of S cones which is much less common.
Finally, the amazing qualities of the perception of vision branch to its potential effects upon those with mental disabilities. Those with mental disabilities generally have a lessened perception of vision in terms of acuity. This can be corrected by a treatment known as “Vision Therapy.” Vision therapy is a treatment that is in fact used by a plethora of optometrists in modern society. This therapy allows patients to get a better grasp upon everyday activities, which is crucial and generally taken for granted by those that have accurate, functioning vision perception. Vision therapy involves utilities such as eye patches, optical filters, computer programs, light prisms, balancing vestibular equipment, and general prescription lenses (1996). This therapy builds upon itself, so as to help vision on a multiplicity of levels as those with mental disabilities usually have vision problems in more than one area, as vision is indeed so complex. This therapy focuses primarily on individuals afflicted with autism, rather than just any mental disability. The idea has a foundation upon the thought that vision utilizes muscles to function, and just as regular physical exercise, one can train these muscles to the point of a dramatically improved level of vision. Generally, those with autism cannot follow a moving object which can be quite dangerous in terms of getting around from day to day, nor do autistic patients have a grasp on vertical and horizontal tacking, in regards to follow the horizontal words on the page of a book, for instance. Vision therapy can help correct this problems, and even a slight amount of help can aid the life of an autistic patient tremendously.
Vision is an extraordinary aspect of perception, and the aforementioned items are only a bit of the numerous things I have learned about this semester. Individuals must take the time to understand how much work goes into visual perception, how it can subconsciously effect the simple and not entirely simple choices of individuals from day to day, and how it can effect autistic patients as well as methods being implemented to solve these problems in autistic patients. It is truly difficult to fathom that so much is taking place at once, parallel to so many other complex processes that we learned about in terms of the other senses we are capable of.
Works Cited
(2000). Sensory Transduction. Retrieved April 27, 2008, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi? rid=mcb.section.6255/
(1996). Vision Therapy. Retrieved April 27, 2008, from www.visiontherapy.org/
Morton, J. (1995). Color Matters. Retrieved April 27, 2008, from http://www.colormatters.com/optics.html/
*Note: I tried to format my references multiple times (ie appropriate spacing with a tab on the second line) but the actual weblog format/program would not let me do so!
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Perception: April 18, 2008
Depth is not merely a part of every painting. It takes skill and specific techniques, mostly focusing on colors, to create the image of depth within a picture, and in the past, these techniques had not yet been discovered. In order to create depth, in oil paintings, there are many generally prescribed tips for successfully achieving this. The list contains things like making colors more intense in the foreground and less intense in the background, cooling colors with the color blue as the fade into the background, using thick paint in the foreground, using clear distinctions between the realms of the foreground, middle ground, and background, and making objects smaller and smaller as they fade into the distance. The list for oil painting also includes making objects in the background have edges that are much less sharp, by softening them and in a sense, blurring them. Painting that creates a sense of flatness is also a negative aspect when attempting to create depth. Two crucial aspects of creating depth in paintings involves the use of linear painting and vanishing points. Upon doing research, I also found a list of colors used to portray light with depth, rather than “lemon yellow” which is typically used as light in the foreground. These colors include gray, ultramarine blue, quinacridone red mixed with ultramarine blue, quinacridone red, grumbacher red, lemon yellow, cadmium yellow medium mixed with grumabacher red, cadmium yellow medium and cadmium yellow deep. These colors all have either a tinted blue-yellow or reddish-yellow appearance to them. During the pre-Renaissance time, people could not master the art of creating depth as they attempted to do so solely by the use of occlusion, or blocking out parts of figures by other figures to indicate the foreground versus the background. After this period is when perspective became more thought about, and linear perspective came into use, along with the use of specific colors as listed above and aspects such as vanishing points. In order to create realistic depth, they began to then use the tools of aerial and linear perspective, occlusion, different size and placements, and relative hues. More emphasis was placed on things such as making edges of objects in the background softer. Altogether, painting has come a long way, and now, when we observe a painting, through the use of these tools it is able to appear much more realistic and life-like with the successful incorporation of the factor of depth!
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April 12, 2008
We could, of course, study color solely on its biological mechanisms of being perceived, and the pathways it involves, that leave us with the colorful objects we are able to see. However, it is little known that color in fact has the capability to affect so much more than merely seeing a red light versus a green light. It would be interesting to touch upon a few of these various aspects of life that are effected by the world of colors. To begin with, color has the supposed ability to effect one’s appetite. The color blue is, for some strange reason, thought to be the one color in the color spectrum that is in fact an appetite suppresant. Weight loss researchers encourage those attempting to diet to do things such as dye their foods blue, eat on a blue plate, and change their refrigerator lightbulb to one that emits a blue color, rather than the usual yellow! Black and purple are the two other, somewhat minor colors, that are viewed as appetite suppresants. The hypothesized reasoning for this is simple enough. First, it is quite difficult to find food in nature that is blue in color. Therefore, humans are thought to not have an appropriate biological response to the color blue, in regards to one’s appetite, in comparison to other colors such as red (meat) and green (leafy vegetables). Correspondingly, it is thought that humans also instinctively avoid poisonous foods and colors indicating possible lethal foods. When humans first came about, it is thought that black, purple and blue were seen as the three prime colors indicating something poisonous to be avoided. Color is a part of what contributes to the overall experience of tasting something, as people who eat in the dark tend to report a certain element lacking in their dining experience. Food is first processed through the eyes, in regards to what it is and what it will taste like. With blue coloring, the eyes automatically send a signal to the brain to avoid eating this particular food, which will seemingly decrease the appetite. On this note, as each sense has a pathway to the brain, when a color is perceived, these sensory pathways may accidentally cross over. Therefore, a yellow-green color sometimes produces a sour taste. A pink color can sometimes produce a sweet taste, while a grey color can produce a smoky taste. Another way that color is thought to affect us is in regards to how we react to our environments. Colors can actually cause environments to bring about sensations of fatigue, stress, a decrease of visual perception, a loss of orientation, and a feeling of danger. For instance, when walking on a bright-colored object, such as a rug consisting of bright colors, someone may trip and fall because the bright colors actually triggers somewhat of a motor response, as bright colors seem to “jump out” more than dull colors. When concentrating on something, even the slightest brightly colored object anywhere in one’s field of vision can cause that person to entirely lose concentration on what he or she is attempting to do and be put into a state of distraction. Bright colors can also strain one’s eyes and if someone observes them for extended periods of time, they can actually hurt your optical power. There are so many more ways that are being explored in which colors effect us on a daily basis. One would never think that colors have so much power and can effect the mind in such ways!
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Earlier, we briefly touched upon the concept of iridology, and came to the fast conclusion that it did not provide any significant data. As I was researching information to figure out what to write about this week, I came upon numerous (modern) sources that in fact support the idea of iridology and use it in their medical practices. Most people who do this are natural healers, as one might expect. I looked into this topic a bit more. As we are focusing on vision and its complexities, it may be interesting to delve a bit deeper into this concept, and see what it is about. Iridology, in the most general sense, is the study of the irises of an individual’s eyes in order to determine his or her overall health. It was first discussed in writings of Hippocrates, from the fourth century BC. The founder of modern iridology was the Hungarian Dr. Ignatz von Peczley.“It is seen as a holistic tool, rather than a tool to determine one particular aspect of the health of an individual. Some people do indeed use this field in modern day to assist with diagnoses of patients, although others firmly believe that it does not help with the particular diagnosis of a disease within patients. Rather, they believe, it helps determine various tissue strengths of corresponding organs in the body. Some also believe that a “branch” of iridology can give insight into the psychological health of an individual, in addition to or rather than the physiological. This branch, referred to as “Rayid,” is said to analyze the emotional, mental and even spiritual aspects of the body. Some believe that learning the field of iridology can give allow an individual to check themselves on a routinely basis so as to ensure overall increased health. As we briefly touched upon in class, iridology uses charts to help measure one’s overall health. In addition to this, a tool called a Chinese iriscope has been created to “accurately” measure the health of a person based on their irises. This practice of iridology is in fact more pronounced in Eastern Asia than in the West, and medical practitioners on that side of the world somewhat significantly believe in its use, at least on some level, as there are so many opinions of this field. Some even support a “vibratory theory” regarding neural impulses causing vibrations, leading to eventual vibrations in the iris!
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March 30, 2008
Most people can generally read facial expressions to a degree that allows them to successfully interact with others. However, some, such as Paul Ekman, have essentially asserted that this reading of facial expressions may as well be more of a quantifiable, definable science. Paul Ekman, who we learned about in regards to his defining of six basic emotions (anger, sadness, surprise, disgust, happiness and fear) and his book, “Unmasking the Face,” it is interesting to delve a bit further into his thoughts of the science of reading facial expressions and understanding emotions. Ekman created a system to better categorize extremely specific facial expressions, in correspondence with a Wallace Friesan, referred to as the Facial Action Coding System. This was a huge compilation of pictures of all 43 facial muscles with their corresponding detailed descriptions, and the expressions caused by movement of these muscles. He, in fact, took this system to the CIA and offered to teach them how to read facial expressions, however his offer was politely declined. Nonetheless, his system is still used by many law enforcement officers as well as health care providers. Although he tell those who use this system to keep in mind to use it with hand gestures and speech, one must remember that the foundation is in fact in the muscle movement of the face. He stresses that in order to read facial expressions accurately, one must not necessarily look at the obvious expressions, but the fleeting, barely perceptible ones that pass through one’s face in flickers of time. These expressions, which he refers to as microexpressions, are what he believes to be the key to reading facial features. He does not deviate from the anatomical aspect of these expressions, through his theorizing. His claims are all based on the muscle workings in the face. For instance, he claims that a trained observer can determine whether an individual is sad before they may even realize that they are sad, through observation of the frontalis pars medalis muscle, near the eyebrow. If this muscle is raised, he asserts without doubt that this is a clear indication of the defined emotion of sadness. Ekman is a firm believer in the accuracy of the science of reading expressions, and considers himself an expression reader, which, on some level, brings others to deem him to be a lie expert. However, he also claims that he can turn off this ability easily, in interactions with his children and wife, for instance. It is interesting to think about whether or not Ekman’s theory is in fact true. Granted, movement of facial muscles is based entirely on biology. However, does the actual movement of these muscles directly reflect what one is feeling? If someone who does not even feel “sad” moves the frantalis pars medals muscle slightly, are we, as mere observers, entitlied to deem this person as “sad” indeed and assert that they simply are not aware of this sadness yet? How valid is this system of corresponding muscle movements with direct, defined emotions? This is difficult to determine, as although muscle movement may be strictly biological, emotions are beyond this limited realm of study. The combination of these two concepts, therefore, may or may not be able to be defined in the manner in which Ekman defines it, although even the FBI/CIA went back to Ekman and recruited him to interpret Osama bin Ladin’s emotions on videotape. This system seems to make sense to more and more people, however we must keep in mind that the study of facial expressions may not be so simple as to be able to give it solely biological causes.
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March 22, 2008
Someone like a younger brother to me was born with slightly severe autism. Due to this, I have always been involved in autistic “treatments,” and such… I remember going with him to his weekly physical therapy sessions, for instance, when I was younger. Something quite interesting to me is the way autistic patients process visual information. To begin with, most autistic patients, due to overall diminished sensory functions, perceive visual stimuli at a lessened level than that of individuals without this disorder. In this regard, their ability to visually follow moving objects is quite hindered, as are their abilities to accurately judge distances and utilize the tool of depth perception. They have weak horizontal and vertical visual tracking. This refers to, for instance, following words (horizontally) on a page in the simple task of reading. Not only do autistic patients have a lessened perception of vision in most aspects, but professionals usually merely attribute this to solely autism itself, and proceed to therefore do nothing to even try to help these patients process visual information better, which, in all actuality, could really help them with so many other factors of their lives such as the simple act of catching a ball. Essentially, it is a sad story when things like this are brushed over, as autistic patients can indeed learn things and learn them well- learning just takes them longer periods of time. On this note, a new form of treatment for decreased visual perception in autistic patients has come about, entitled “Vision Therapy,” given by optometrists. Paralleled to physical therapy, this form of treatment lays its foundation on the concept that vision utilizes muscles, just like all other parts of the body, and parts of the brain that can all be trained to do something. Vision therapy takes into account that autistic patients can generally learn things and learn them well, provided more “practice,” for lack of a better term. It does not entail physical surgery. Rather, it builds upon performing visual exercises, so to speak, so as to work to improve one’s vision on a myriad of levels. Ophthamologists focus on surgery, while optometrists use things such as this form of therapy. Vision therapy has helped patients learn to have a better grasp on their visual tools, needed to do basic, everyday tasks, which is why this sounds like such a great idea to me as it helps so many autistic patients on such a fundamental, necessary level. Some autistic patients, as previously stated, have trouble perceiving moving objects. In other words, to address this on a more biological level, these autistic patients have eyes that work independently, thereby halting depth perception, causing severe convergence problems, and altogether making the patient see two images of something moving rather than one. These patients do not see the moving object while it is moving, rather they only see it when it has stopped. This must be not only a horrible feeling to experience, but a quite dangerous predicament as well. Vision therapy aids this in that autistic patients learn how to actually follow a moving object. As you may imagine, vision therapy is a broad field that could be spoken on for quite some time (involving much more space than a blog provides!). However, to touch upon a few tools of vision therapy, we can observe items such as eye patches, prescription lenses (which, in vision therapy, are worn in increments that increase as time goes by), vestibular equipment that aids balance, prisms, optical filters, computer programs, and optical filters. A common question revolves around whether the field of orthopics and vision therapy are the same field of work. Orthopics is a field that entails cosmetic straightening of eyes and physical training of eye muscles. The latter component is a part of vision therapy, however not the former part. Altogether, vision therapy is a great evolving field that can truly benefit the lives of autistic patients in tremendous amounts. For further reading, here is a clinical studies article about how vision therapy can effect academic performance: http://www.visiontherapy.org/vision-therapy/pdfs/08_visual_factors_Maples.pdf
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March 15, 2008
As I write this with extremely dry eyes and uncomfortable contacts, I am squinting to see the screen. As Roger Carpenter stated, the eye truly is the slave and master of vision. Granted, there are several ways to interpret this. In my opinion, however, I understand the importance of good sight, and am fully aware of how powerful this perceptive process is. My eyesight is horrible, worse than most people. In fact, I am a point away from being legally blind. Not only am I unreasonably near-sighted, but I have an annoying form of astigmatism that only one in 1,000 people have, due to the manner in which it ruins your visual perception. Without my contacts or glasses, the world is completely different in my eyes. It is a blur of colors. Shapes that are even fairly close to me are generally unable for my eyes to define. I absolutely cannot start my day off without glasses or contacts. My eyes are dry, so I have to constantly carry eyedrops (which petrify me). It is amazing to think that a slight stretch of the eyeball can cause this poor vision. This shows how important every component of perceptual processes are, on a microscopic scale. I can go on about my poor vision, but it is safe to say that many people reading this know precisely what I am speaking of, and how much it can effect one’s life. On that note, as Roger Carpenter said, the eye is the master and slave to vision. He meant this in a different light than the aforementioned elements. This statement can, in this regard, be interpreted in the aspect of vision being a component of the brain. The brain will lock its attention on something, and thereby cause the eye to remain looking at whatever it is looking at. This is the element of the eye being placed in the role of the slave to vision. The eye can also randomly search about, as in the case of when one is daydreaming or is in a daze. The eye focuses on, in a way, whatever it chooses to, or whatever it falls upon. It is, in this instance, the master of vision. Vision, however, can have many meanings, depending on who one may be speaking to. To some, it may mean the actual processing, through the brain, of visual stimuli, from the reception of photons in photoreceptors all the way to the transmission of the neural signal to the occipital lobe at the back of the brain. To others, it may mean piecing things together in one’s mind, in the sense of putting together what you see with emotions, reminders, conversation, and essentially all other parts of your life. In this sense, Roger Carpenter may not have estimated the many ways that his statement could be interpreted, despite its truth.
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March 1, 2008
Cameras are thought to be much like the eyes in perception of vision, for multiple reason, the prime one being the many layers that an image must travel through so as to be morphed into something “readable,” in a sense. For both cameras and eyes, the signal being received is not in a readable form. With eyes, for instance, photons serve as a sort of signal molecule for G protein coupled receptors in the retina that activate various pathways and molecules, such as the G protein complex transducin which will thereby activate the phosphodiesterase effector which will convert active cGMP to inactive GMP, so that the membrane of the axons present may be hyperpolarized and no Na+ ions may be allowed through. This hyperpolarization prevents glutamate from being sent to the brain and light is received. This is all very simplified, as there are many more factors involved such as ganglion cells, bipolar cells, and photoreceptors of the rod and cone families. The image seen is interpreted “upside down,” in the scheme of eye perception. With a camera, on the other hand, it is important to remember that a photon travels through different mediums at different speeds. So, as it hits the lens of the camera, the light will bend a little at a time until it reaches the film, where the image is inverted. (This can also be applied to eyes, in a sense). With a camera, however, instead of cells in the back of your retina recording various aspects of the image, such as cones for color images, film serves this purpose. The millions of different light particles hit the film, inverted, and are recorded. This is a highly simplified way of thinking about it. However, one can observe that even regardless of the many layers that both a camera and eye must utilize to finally view an image, they share similar traits such as a lens, and the fact that the image must be inverted so as to be “processed,” essentially. A key difference, as we all know, is that cameras produce images that are meant to last, while the eye perceives an image and must also interpret the images that are immediately presented to it less than milliseconds afterwards. It is upto the brain to store the images processed, and it is quite difficult for the brain to store images so as to get a perfect recollection of them at any point in time. Cameras allow memories to be made, while eyes allow individuals to actually see these memories. If images are strong enough, or meaningful enough, they have the potential to be recorded impeccably and be recalled at any moment, however that has more to do with the realm of the brain itself, as it is a fascinating part of our bodies.
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February 22, 2008
Mondegreens is a strange word for a strange concept. It is weird how the brain fills in gaps, with not only auditory perception. Gestalt principles dictate, for instance, that the brain will automatically fill in visual cues when perceiving something incomplete. Mondegreens are somewhat of a parallel to this, except the brain seems to have more freedom in this area. Rather than filling in missing components to shapes, such as the infamous Gestalt picture of the three incomplete circles forming an “invisible” triangle, mondegreens can involve emotional elements and personal thoughts, as well. Whereas visual cues are filled in by the brain logically and rationally deducing which shape the image is closest, at least with basic Gestalt images such as the one described above, to and what parts of it to fill in so as to successfully produce a clear image of this shape in one’s mind. Granted, some visual cues can be blurs that different people will respond to in different manners. However, in regards to auditory “images,” in a sense, the brain is free to fill in whatever it would like, reasonably enough. Songs are generally open schemes, when you take out the words and just listen to the tune or background music. It is very easy to be distracted and hear the words of a song resembling something like “I (insert word(s) of choice here) you (insert word(s) of choice here) and so (insert large paragraph of choice here).” It is easy to, when emotionally or mentally stressed, to either not hear the words to a song at all, or to hear a song that you do not know the words to and hear something entirely different than what is actually being sung. To not hear the words to a song at all entails essentially zoning out. It has happened to all of us. It is a concept as strange as mondegreens in that it is weird to think that our brains can be active and working yet somehow be unconsciously shut off at a random point in time, with the individual realizing this possibly hours later. An individual can not even realize that he or she is listening to a song at full blast and not hearing any of the words. An individual can go on forever thinking they are hearing certain words to a song, and sing along to this song, when in reality the words are entirely different. What is more perplexing is that these lyrics can be in your first language. You would think that this would prevent a good amount of mishearing of the lyrics to a given song, if not all the mishearing of these lyrics. However, I myself have gone for months believing that I was hearing one sentence in a song, which was nothing like what was actually being sung, in countless songs. Not only have I done this, I have sung along with these songs being played at the highest possible volume, and still not picked up on the entirely different words. Somewhat parallel to mondegreens, one can also hear the correct words to a song and misinterpret them entirely based on the intonations of the voice. The same set of lyrics can be interpreted in multiple distinct manners due to simply how the words are sung, regardless of even the tune or background music. It is strange how we can decide to hear something when nothing needs to be filled in, unlike the visual Gestalt cues. The brain is such an interesting organ that appears to be extremely good at filling in parts of things that are not even missing parts. Some part of it seems to possibly know what we want to hear, rather than what is being sung to us, and is capable of entirely changing our perception of these auditory cues so as to ensure us that we are indeed hearing what we think we are hearing, regardless of how false this may be.
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February 14, 2008
The most important use for hearing, in my opinion, is listening to music. Music is the element of this world that allows sanity. In this chaotic place, if I did not have music, I would go insane. As a concert piano major, I may be a bit biased towards this. Every morning, billions of people start their days through music. It is a crazy form of art that is not visual, but acoustic, yet can tell so much. Millions of sounds, of unimaginable types, are combined on whims to produce works of art that are so unbelievable that there are not words to describe it. One can analyze music for hours upon hours and not come to any reasonable conclusions about it. There are so many ups and downs that it is an adventure in itself every time a song is heard. I am the type of person who cannot relax to music- I analyze everything I listen to, which can get quite frustrating. (Again, a reason I may be a music major). However, if music were to not be a part of this world, in its entirety, counting sounds heard on the street, voices, nothing would be there anymore. It would be as if we were living in a strange vacuum. Some may disagree with me, and say that the most important use for hearing is communication. Communication, however, on its fundamental level and meaning of conveying something to another being, can be accomplished by other means, such as visual cues. Music, however, encompasses voices, and without hearing these sounds, people would indeed be missing out. People would not understand the infinite sounds able to be heard in the world, for instance the innumerable voice types, instruments, and more. Also, in regards to communication itself, one can communicate so much better through sound, and some consider all sounds to be music. Sure, someone can pass a note to someone else to convey something, but it means so much more when it is spoken and, consequently, heard. This breaches a whole new level of conveying something, and understanding every element with which it is conveyed. Music is a world in itself that encompasses songs, voices, and so much more. It is critical to the optimal well-being of people. Helen Keller once stated that blindness cut her off from things, while deafness cut her off from people. In respect to the aforementioned statements, I do agree in part with Helen Keller’s statement. Without hearing, and on that note, without music in this world, people are left with a hole in them, essentially. Music expresses emotions, thoughts, desires, fears, hopes, and provides a perfect means for a necessary outlet for people everywhere, whether it be through composition or simply listening and appreciating it. This is part of what differentiates people from other species- we are capable of these fantastic things and no other species is. Without music, I for one would feel entirely cut off from nearly everything. Without sounds, and noise, I would not know what to do. In this regard, I must disagree with Helen Keller and say that while blindness may cut one off from things, deafness cuts one off from people, things, feelings, and so much more. Deafness cuts one off from everything. One would no longer be capable of viewing the world in the same manner with the inability to hear, and with a lack of music in our lives.
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