Alright this stuff is more my area of expertise. The brain and its cognitive functions are something that scientists and psychologists love to study. Specifically, this idea of spatial recognition systems has been studied quite vastly. One of the leading discoveries in this area is of course the neurons in your brain that fire and are used in both memory and location sensing. But another interesting discovery in this area is that is it a widely accepted concept that men have better spatial skills than women do. This is seen mostly as a direct result of natural section. Men used to be the hunters and would need to find their way back to their homes after hunting. Those that had poor spatial navigation skills did not make it home and did not pass on their genes. The grid like firing patterns of neurons in the surviving males were stronger and more easily connected.
Implied in this talk by Burgess is that the creation of new imagery is in itself remembrance of old imagery. When recreating past experiences, our brains rely on the formation (or, rather, reformation) of an earlier environment and space, meaning that the boundaries of our new creations remain relatively constant. Combined, however, with the small inaccuracies caused by spatial memory of individuals neurons, images created by these mechanisms change and mutate slowly over time, leading to variations of the same memory. Moreover, a change in perception is not necessarily an alteration of the message in itself, but rather small changes to the spatial realm of the message, such as the addition of walls.
I think its so interesting how in nature you look at one thing and it is really composed of billions of smaller things creating that image. The same applies here- you are able to remember where you are because of the billions of neurons that create mental images telling you just that. Looking at it on such a small level is incredible to think about and makes you really question reality, because what makes up any image or recollection is simply made by a bunch of small particles in your brain.
Which is the image, the physical object that you see, the light reflected off of it going into your eyes, or the actual "image" that is transduced? It then begs the question of what is reality and what isn't... As we all know, frequency truly defines the color of light, not wavelength.
Actually, this ties in with spatial recognition systems, the creation of new imagery with old imagery. I'll go back to quantum physics and try to do some pseudo science. The old images we have already seen can be thought of as a set of photons with certain frequencies and corresponsing wavelengths. These new images which are a different set of wavelengths could be superpositions (combinations) of these old waves, causing new memories and images to be mixed with old ones!!!!
Like the individual neurons that fire in the brain to help us visualize and remember, pictures are made up of individual pixels that come together to make an image. I find the connection between this talk and photography very interesting as many of the things I remember from childhood I only remember from pictures rather than actual memories from being at the event. Perhaps a study should be done to consider the role of physical images in regards to spatial recognition to determine if people truly remember a place from a photo as it was when they were in it, or if the image of the place dominates their memory of the space.
I've never really thought about how our brains figure out where we are but this isn't really how I thought it would have worked; that being said, I think it's really cool. This also makes me think that, eventually, we could have computers that behave very much like the brain. This is because the brain basically works by breaking down all of the stimuli that it receives and trying to match different parts of the stimuli to what is essentially data that it has stored. This is a very straightforward process that could be done by a computer. I obviously have almost no understanding of how the brain works though. Despite this, I think that there will be a lot of really interesting crossover between neuroscience and computer science in the future.
I have a very basic understanding of how the brain works so I'm glad that TED talks are able to adequately explain hard concepts in understandable ways without watering down the science. That being said, I found this talk to be enlightening. I would have never thought that our brains interpret spacial memory like this.
Alright this stuff is more my area of expertise. The brain and its cognitive functions are something that scientists and psychologists love to study. Specifically, this idea of spatial recognition systems has been studied quite vastly. One of the leading discoveries in this area is of course the neurons in your brain that fire and are used in both memory and location sensing. But another interesting discovery in this area is that is it a widely accepted concept that men have better spatial skills than women do. This is seen mostly as a direct result of natural section. Men used to be the hunters and would need to find their way back to their homes after hunting. Those that had poor spatial navigation skills did not make it home and did not pass on their genes. The grid like firing patterns of neurons in the surviving males were stronger and more easily connected.
ReplyDeleteImplied in this talk by Burgess is that the creation of new imagery is in itself remembrance of old imagery. When recreating past experiences, our brains rely on the formation (or, rather, reformation) of an earlier environment and space, meaning that the boundaries of our new creations remain relatively constant. Combined, however, with the small inaccuracies caused by spatial memory of individuals neurons, images created by these mechanisms change and mutate slowly over time, leading to variations of the same memory. Moreover, a change in perception is not necessarily an alteration of the message in itself, but rather small changes to the spatial realm of the message, such as the addition of walls.
ReplyDeleteI think its so interesting how in nature you look at one thing and it is really composed of billions of smaller things creating that image. The same applies here- you are able to remember where you are because of the billions of neurons that create mental images telling you just that. Looking at it on such a small level is incredible to think about and makes you really question reality, because what makes up any image or recollection is simply made by a bunch of small particles in your brain.
ReplyDeleteWhich is the image, the physical object that you see, the light reflected off of it going into your eyes, or the actual "image" that is transduced? It then begs the question of what is reality and what isn't... As we all know, frequency truly defines the color of light, not wavelength.
Deleteso, what are you saying, that reality is made of frequencies?
DeleteYes, that's actually exactly what I'm saying. Remember my post about realities and things?
DeleteActually, this ties in with spatial recognition systems, the creation of new imagery with old imagery. I'll go back to quantum physics and try to do some pseudo science. The old images we have already seen can be thought of as a set of photons with certain frequencies and corresponsing wavelengths. These new images which are a different set of wavelengths could be superpositions (combinations) of these old waves, causing new memories and images to be mixed with old ones!!!!
DeleteLike the individual neurons that fire in the brain to help us visualize and remember, pictures are made up of individual pixels that come together to make an image. I find the connection between this talk and photography very interesting as many of the things I remember from childhood I only remember from pictures rather than actual memories from being at the event. Perhaps a study should be done to consider the role of physical images in regards to spatial recognition to determine if people truly remember a place from a photo as it was when they were in it, or if the image of the place dominates their memory of the space.
ReplyDeleteI've never really thought about how our brains figure out where we are but this isn't really how I thought it would have worked; that being said, I think it's really cool. This also makes me think that, eventually, we could have computers that behave very much like the brain. This is because the brain basically works by breaking down all of the stimuli that it receives and trying to match different parts of the stimuli to what is essentially data that it has stored. This is a very straightforward process that could be done by a computer. I obviously have almost no understanding of how the brain works though. Despite this, I think that there will be a lot of really interesting crossover between neuroscience and computer science in the future.
ReplyDeleteI have a very basic understanding of how the brain works so I'm glad that TED talks are able to adequately explain hard concepts in understandable ways without watering down the science. That being said, I found this talk to be enlightening. I would have never thought that our brains interpret spacial memory like this.
ReplyDelete