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Seeing/hearing and sighted/blind tests
wrote:
I don't take your point, the two terms in this context seems a case of a
difference without a distinction. Any scientific "explanation" is at the
same time a "suggestion" of an application of an observed principle.
I've read the paper and the page you cited. One could use it to speculate
that sight might be necessary to *increase* hearing sensitivity by activating
those 'border' neurons, and vice
versa. It could be used as well as to speculate that it gie a basis for
the *spuriousness* of sighed perceptions sound, as you have done.
But in fact neither thing was actually tested.
Brain activity in the seeing area spills over into the hearing area,
exciting perceptions that are not inherent in the physical sound waves as
they arive at the ear. Remove the adjacent excitation and the perception
receeds in the hearing area, that is the thesis as the research
suggests/explains.
But in a real DBT, the adjacent excitation is not necessarily removed at all.
Most DBT subjects aren't literally deprived of visual input.
It seems to me that using the study to support either view, is premature.
That is why the subjectivist can claim with such vigor
that something is really happening, it is, but only as a perception
product and not a realistic experience of the physical event. The
perception experience is so vivid as to motivate the adoption of any
number of explanations/suggestions in an attempt to tie it back into the
physical realm. The oft repeated "just trust yyour ears" is in fact
perhaps not an appeal to the function of the ear but the spill over in
adjacent areas that are down stream of ears.
But there is no evidence that the border visual neurons *aren't* firing in a DBT
too, or are firing any differently than in a 'sighted' test.
What the paper shows is that when visual , somatosensory (touch)
or audio input is present, there is robust activity in the expected
cortical areas, and there is also low-level
neural activity in cortical areas that are unexpected, based on the
parcelling paradigm. Some of these neurons actually appear to be
'multisensory' -- they respond to stimulus of more than one kind.
Note that the visual input in this case is flashes or moving bars of light
against a dark background (or its negative image) , i.e., a
'moving' or 'active' or 'tracking' visual stimulus...which
is hardly representative of what is going on in audio comparison.
Teh audio stimulus consisted of hisses, clicks, chirps and other
'complex;' sounds', but not, I suspect, music. ;
It's interesting that hisses and clicks and chirps were usedm
since one might think that things like hissing and chirping
would set of all kinds of instinctual alarms in a rat.
Btw, somatosensory stimulus consisted of deflections of hair or
skin using a camel's hair brush ...or,far more
ominously, of 'stimulation of deep tissue by using probes and manual
manipulation.' Anyone care to discuss the implications of THAT
for audio comparison? ;
--
-S.
"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director
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