What is Digg?40 Comments
- SkeletaLlama, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5scientist: "may we 'zap' your brain to render you blind in the name of science?"
random idiot: "sure sounds good to me, with technical terminology as advanced as 'zap', what could possibly go wrong?"
That's a cool finding, but damned if I'd ever let any scientist who used the word 'zap' within ten yards of my brain. - anateus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I agree with loup.
The finding indicates that there is visual processing which happens outside of the visual cortex.
More important, in my opinion, is the finding that "guessing" can really evoke this "unconscious" information. - loup, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3a bit of a misleading headline, more like "The brain uses more than just the visual cortex to process visual information"
- Beanis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think they need to use more than 9 test subjects with tests a little harder than 50-50 odds to come to any real conclusions.
- anateus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Having studied neurobiology, I imagine what really happened is that sensory memories created by the hippocampus of the event were processed by the visual cortex during the moment of guessing.
This would be similar to how you can listen to someone without paying attention, but be able to repeat the last sentence they said even though you weren't paying any attention at all. - Rabid_Llama, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Good comments so far (for the most part). I especially like how the information that was never consciously processed still manages to positively effect "guessing". This is why I try to follow my "instincts," even on trivial decisions -- my brain often knows or remembers things that I don't consciously think about.
- peerk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"ya have u ever noticed that when your eyes are closed and it is sunny outside that you can still see redness/yellowness when you are looking at the sun"
That's because light is still getting through your eyelids.
It is kinda like holding a sheet up to a lamp and still seeing some of the light through the sheet. - themachina, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Cool, but like Beanis and Vijcht said, they should test a meaningful sample group before reporting stuff like this.
- triplegmax, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is the true story of nine strangers, picked to live in a house and have their site removed, and find out what happens when people stop being polite and start seeing green dots and vertical lines.
these scientists are teh ghey. - gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+09 people is not enough to make any kind of statistical conclusion from the results.
- VijchtiDoodah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"I think they need to use more than 9 test subjects with tests a little harder than 50-50 odds to come to any real conclusions."
Absolutely. You can't have an accurate test with only 9 subjects. That's ridiculous.
"ya have u ever noticed that when your eyes are closed and it is sunny outside that you can still see redness/yellowness when you are looking at the sun"
Llamagod, that's the sunlight hitting and passing through your eyelids. You can still see through them, you know. - iamserious, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Can I pick up chicks with my mind yet?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0" Geez, like Marijuana was banned based off of scientific studies of 0 people."
You, sir, are a moron. - emiles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ha - ok. I'm really bad at picking up sarcasm when people are talking, so you can imagine how bad I am at picking up typewritten sarcasm.
- hopeless_savage, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If you read the actual paper, the results that they report are statistically significant. While more subjects are usually better, if you have each one do the task enough times, you can overcome the noise in the data and get pretty reliable results. Plus, if it's in a journal like PNAS, you can generally trust that their methods were sound. Not saying you should take it on faith, but that's usually a good indicator.
What bugs me though is that the Livescience article had to drag Freud into it. There's nothing about that in the paper itself. Yes, the brain processes more sensory information than we are actually aware of. This tells us something about how awareness arises in the brain. All of this is plenty interesting without exhuming Freud's ideas on the unconscious and throwing them into the mix.
Digg for the cool study, though. - mack.michael, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0First of all, their results show a statistically significant advantage for "guessing" the correct response (responding correctly more than 50% of the time). The fact that the correct responses were "guessed" 75% and 81% of the time is a massive effect. Usually research in blindsight results in effects of guessing correctly 55-60%. With an effect this large, 9 subjects is enough.
Second, as has been stated here, the title is wrong. Obviously the images of the stimuli are hitting the photoreceptor cells of the retina, being converted into neural responses, and traveling through the visual pathway (they are "seen" by the eyes). The researchers used TMS to temporarily introduce an electrical lesion in the visual cortex. What resulted is an inability for the perception of the stimuli to reach consciousness. There are different pit stops and branchings in the visual pathway where processing of visual information occurs outside of visual cortex. Vision researchers have known for a long time that not all visual processing occurs in the visual cortex. This is not the big conclusion from this paper. What is the big conclusion is that in order for perception of visual stimuli to reach awareness, the visual information must be processed by the visual cortex.
As for KUKBAHLAM, is the systematic exploration of the visual system of the human brain an unscientific endeavor? - ipunchstrangers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0can I pick up things with my mind yet?
- nonsomniac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is absolutely nothing new. It is a called blindsight and can be found in any cognitive psych or biopsych intro text book. A region known as the superior colliculus (SC) works in parallel with the visual cortex. So, "zapping" the visual cortex leaves the SC untouched.
- emiles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If there is something bad, then as long as there is something else worse the first thing isn't really bad after all.
Great reasoning guys... - lollerskates, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Apparently, the brain compensates.
Just like how it is "programmed" to flip the constant images from our eyes to the correct way, as the light is actually coming in upside down. - SkeletaLlama, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0you sir are a moron, that was blatant sarcasm.
- Rabid_Llama, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"no dur the results are gonna be 50-50...the questions asked in the first place had a 50-50 ratio. "red or green dot" hmmm.. there's 2 choices i mean of course its gonna be 50-50"
Reading comprehension -- the article, and the sentence you quoted, says they did *significantly better* than 50-50. Like, the 81% that's stated in the digg abstract for the article. - duodave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Oh I hate these things that are published in secret journals where you have to have a special login to read them. There's no information in the linked article about whether it was double blind! Were the testers able to see the screen at the same time as the blinded subjects? They could have subconsiously influenced the subjects if they were able to see the screens.
- mighty_mouth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hey folks, undigg this story and digg this one instead:
http://digg.com/science/Mystery_of_Blindsight_Lets_Some_Blind_People_See,_
It has more details and less sensationalism. - rwtf91, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"The scientists then asked the study subjects if they had seen a horizontal or vertical line in one test, and a red or green dot in the other."
"When asked to guess what they'd seen, however, they did significantly better than 50-50."
no dur the results are gonna be 50-50...the questions asked in the first place had a 50-50 ratio. "red or green dot" hmmm.. there's 2 choices i mean of course its gonna be 50-50 - ProfMo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Neat article.
I'm wondering if the scientists might have inadvertently led the subjects to the right answer? But since I can't get access to the full PNAS article, I can't really say if there was any sort of suggestion or not.
But heck, if it's all on the up-and-up, tres cool!! - superal1394, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This article makes me think of that CDW commercial where the guys reading minds... i know this has nothing to do with it...
now, if only people could see while they are talking on cell phones - kjartan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I've heard of this. I saw this thing on TV years ago of a man who is completely blind, yet he can somehow detect that there is something in front of him, as long as it's moving. They showed him walking through a park and ducking below tree branches and walking around benches and garbage cans. Pretty crazy stuff.
- Lionhart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"a bit of a misleading headline"
Welcome to Digg. - llamagod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0key skeletallama i realize that sunlight goes through your eyeids but what about when u close ur eyes and can see moving random colored things or if u stare just blankly u see tiny purple dots? and whats with the llama thing? everyone i know now copies me and says llama llama this, llama that, even though i know i didnt invent llamas
- randalt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0So... transcendental experiences may not be so transcendental after all?
- exorcet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0all your wavelength are belong to us
- maskd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@llamagod: Those are called "Closed-Eye Hallucinations". Check it out it's pretty interesting; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_eye_hallucinations
- kejistan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@mikew440
I think that has more to do with the fact that your brain can extrapolate where your hands should be based on your own muscular feedback. I have experienced the same thing (not from 1000 ft under the earth but in a very dark room) and since you can't seem to see anything else in the room unless you've seen the room in the light I would assume that it has more to do with your brain 'guessing' than actually being able to see in the dark.
But this whole idea is rather interesting. As duodave said, it would be nice to know what their testing methods were since whether the test was double-blind or not could greatly impact the results. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0yeah it's kinda like the sense that a shark has when it 'smells' fear..
http://www.geek2us.net/bogeydope
-gher - SkeletaLlama, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Please, 9 is more than enough for scientific studies. Geez, like Marijuana was banned based off of scientific studies of 0 people. If they could make accurate conclusions based on that representative study of no one surely 9 makes it like a million times more accurate.
Lol, Llamagod, you should have the Llama revoked from your name, you don't deserve it after that comment. We Llamas don't need you making a fool of the rest of us. We can do that on our own, thank you. - KUKBAHLAM, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Sounds like the term “Visual Cortex� is a misnomer.
More than likely, this study was performed by psychologists…. Oh look, it WAS done by psychologists… lead by Tony Ro, @ Rice. That explains everything… I was confused. The reporter continuously called them “scientists.� How misleading. This is just another example of the under-educated press. We could get better news and/or head magic science from a group of mice with an etch-a-sketch. - llamagod, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0ya have u ever noticed that when your eyes are closed and it is sunny outside that you can still see redness/yellowness when you are looking at the sun
- XxAMISHxX, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0have you not heard of rusle the one eyed muscle ?!?!?
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