People with Larger Visual Brain More Accurately See the World

Visual experience of the world around us depends on the architecture and size of a certain part of our brain, according to new research by British scientists…

It is clear that the thoughts and feelings differ from person to person, but mostly we used to think that the way we see things around us is more or less identical. But the primary visual cortex – the area in the back of the brain responsible for processing visual information – from person to person can vary in its size by up to 300 percent.

In a new study conducted on a sample of 30 people team from the Centre for brain imaging in the Wellcome Trust at University College in London for the first time demonstrated that the size of this bran part determines how we see the environment. Dr. D. Samuel Schwarzkopf, Chen Song and Professor Geraint Rees showed subjects a series of optical illusions including the famous Ebbinghaus illusion in which two circles of the same size are surrounded by large or small petals (circles). Although in reality identical, to most people first circle looks smaller than the other.

In the second, so called the Ponzo optical illusion, identical circles were placed over the image of the tunnel. Those which are placed in front of the rear part of the tunnel appear to be larger than those which are placed in front of the front part.

Some of the participants ‘saw’ the great differences in the dimensions of circles, and others almost didn’t noticed them at all. Size of the visual cortex for every participant was determined by a magnetic resonance.

According to results published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, respondents are less susceptible to the illusion when they have larger visual lobe.

‘Our study first showed that the size of one part of the brain affects the visual perception of the world around us, “said Dr. Schwarzkopf.’Optical illusions confuse us and inspire our imagination, however, they also show that our world view is not necessarily correct, i.e. that it depends on the dimensions of the brain… How easily will illusions trick us depends on how much did our brain allocated funds for the processing of visual information. “

Some studies have shown that Australian Aborigines have on average much larger visual cortex, and thus the visual intelligence than Europeans.

Taken from: www.tportal.hr