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visual perception

This shows a woman smelling a rose, surrounded by swirling colors.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·October 6, 2023·5 min read

How Odors Warp Our Color Perception

Researchers unveiled an intriguing intersection between our sense of smell and color perception, revealing how particular scents can subtly distort our color experiences. In a meticulous experiment involving six different odors and a neutrally visual task, participants' color perception skewed in alignment with established odor-color associations, such as caramel with brown and yellow or coffee with brown and red.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·September 14, 2023·4 min read

Human Brain Acts Like Super Computer: Advanced Calculations in Human Perception

Researchers have unearthed how human brains inherently perform calculations akin to high-powered computers through Bayesian inference, enabling precise, swift environmental interpretation. This statistical method melds prior knowledge and new evidence, permitting us to quickly and accurately discern our surroundings.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology Visual Neuroscience

·September 6, 2023·4 min read

Jersey Numbers and Perception: How Numbers Impact Our View of Athlete Physique

A new study confirms that football wide receivers wearing jersey numbers between 10 and 19 are perceived as slimmer than those wearing 80-89, even with identical body sizes. This phenomenon suggests our brains use statistical associations between numbers and sizes to determine body size perception.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·June 12, 2023·6 min read

The Adaptive Eye: Survival Dictates Our Visual Perception

Our perception of the world isn't necessarily the most accurate, but rather the most beneficial for our survival. By manipulating the context and rewards of visual tasks, researchers found that our visual perception, even at the retinal level, changes to maximize personal benefits.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·May 16, 2023·4 min read

Perception is Not Only a Matter of Now: Our Past Influences What We See

Our past experiences influence our current perceptions. The brain's visual bias merges past and present stimuli, resulting in a perception that is often a distorted representation of reality. This phenomenon, explored with the help of EEG signals, demonstrates that the occipital cortex retains traces of past images, intensifying perceptual bias. This research underlines the brain's role not only as a receptor but also a constructor of reality.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·May 9, 2023·4 min read

Reality Blur: How Our Eyes Fool Us Into Misjudging Size

In a fascinating twist of perception, a recent study reveals that our eyes can trick our brain into misjudging the size of objects around us. By cleverly blurring parts of images, researchers demonstrated how participants misperceived full-scale railway scenes as smaller than their model counterparts. This surprising finding not only sheds light on the flexibility and occasional flaws of our visual system, but it also hints at profound implications for everyday situations, from driving to criminal justice. The bottom line? Size matters, but our eyes might not always get it right.

This shows different perspectives of a path

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·March 15, 2023·5 min read

Visually Navigating on Foot Uses a Unique Brain Region

The brain uses a specific region called the occipital place area (OPA) to navigate through spaces visually while walking, and not when crawling or using other modes of movement. This discovery sheds light on how children develop spatial awareness and interact with their surroundings as they learn to walk.

This shows the morphed face of Brad Pitt

Featured Neuroscience Psychology Visual Neuroscience

·March 8, 2023·5 min read

Celebrity Sightings Have a Built-in Contradiction

The faces of celebrities are remembered more precisely, but less accurately researchers say.

This shows drawings of a dog, car, and a fish

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·January 6, 2023·4 min read

The Power of Lines and Strokes: How Our Brain Recognizes Line Drawings

Perception of objects is robust to changes in our environment.

This shows a woman standing next to a mask and a painting of an eye

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Visual Neuroscience

·December 19, 2022·5 min read

Some Claim Culture Affects Our Basic Visual Perception

The basics of visual perception, such as object orientation, are largely independent of cultural variation and apply broadly across human populations.

This shows a person surrounded by sound waves

Auditory Neuroscience Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·December 7, 2022·5 min read

Hearing Is Believing: Sounds Can Alter Our Visual Perception

Certain auditory cues not only help us recognize an object more quickly, but they also even alter our visual perception.

This shows a drawing of an eye surrounded with different colors

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·November 22, 2022·4 min read

Could We Train Our Brains to See New Colors?

Researchers question if our brains can take in three primary color inputs and turn them into the range of different colors we can see, could a little bit more mental work result in us unlocking different hues?