Visual Perception

Hello my dear blogger friends!

It is time for a new update on Cognitive Science! Last time I already gave a short introduction on the subject I would like to talk about in this blog, namely: Visual Perception.

First question that comes to mind (hopefully) is without doubt: What is Visual Perception?
Well, in short, visual perception is the ability to perceive information and image with elements of light via the  human eye.
The eye is a very complicated visual system in the human body, as can be seen in the picture below.

When the human eye perceives an image in the eyeball, it is reflected on the cornea of the eye. Then, the image moves through the pupil, where the lens project the image on the retina. After the image is shown on the retina, the information is transmitted via the optical nerve to the brain. This all happens in the blink of an eye (how appropriate, this expression!)

With the visual possibilities of humans, it is possible to test all kinds of little tricks for the eye. There are number of optical illusions where the eye (and therefore the brain) perceives an image differently than it really is. This is because the people perceive components as wholes or groups and then the brain makes his own conclusion to what it sees.  In the image I showed you last time was a nice lady walking with the view of the village on the background, but I'll bet a number of you readers only saw an enormous face in the image!

Next blog I will continue talking about the magificent world of Cognitive Science. For now, I have only one thing to see:
Don't let your eyes trick you!

How it al begun....

Hi there bloggers!

It's time for more Cognitive Science! Last time I only gave you a short definition of the subject, but today you will gain more interesting information...Let's go back in history and see how and where it all begun!!

...*FLASHBACK!!*...

It all started way back at the ancient Greek society, who already were very active in writing philosophical texts. A few important Greeks, such as Plato and Aristotle, contributed in the discovery of the philosophical mind of humans.  Although this eventually led to the development of Psychology, this did not entirely cover the real base of Cognitive Science.

Real Cognitive Science did not came up until the early 20th century. In the first half of the 20th century, behaviorism was a upcoming flow. Behaviorism states that the behavior of human beings is purely scientifically explainable. Some scientists however, did not feel that behaviorism covered all intern mental processes of the human being. After the development of the computer in the 1950's and due to language scientist Noam Chomsky's theories, the Psychology made his first real cognitive turn:
Scientists then saw behavior and mental processes as a function of the information processing capabilities of the brain and the nerves.

This led in the 1970s and 1980s to quite a number of experiments, and even today people are still testing the cognitive abilities of human beings, because there are still new things waiting to be discovered...

Next week we will take a closer look in the visual aspect of cognition, so visit my blog and keep up to date!
What do you see here...:


Cognitive regards,

Welcome!

Hi guys!

So.. this it it.. my first blog! Not my first blog ever, but certainly my first serious blog. Let me start by saying a little something about me, myself and I: I'm currently a pre-master student at the University of Tilburg where I study Business Communication & Digital Media. Next to my busy career as a student I’m also heavily addicted to Facebook and Hyves, and, as from today, also to Blogging!

I'm sure you all want to know what this blog is about… Well, as the title of this blog already says: This blog is about the brain. Moreover, about cognitive science and what you can do with it. For all you people who are wondering what cognitive science is about, here is a brief explanation: Cognitive Science is the study of how the brain processes information. This includes mental processes such as: perception, memory, decision making, skill and attention, etc.
In the next 10 to 15 weeks I will weekly provide interesting, funny, informative and memorable information about the wonderful world of cognitive science.
So if you want to stay up-to-date, feel free to follow my blog and keep in touch via Facebook, Twitter, Hyves, or e-mail, and off course you can leave a message right here on kimvergouwe.blogspot.com.

See you in the next blog!