Synopsis lecture series about perception disorder

Synopsis lecture series about perception disorder, Universiteit van Nederland

Lectures by:

Prof. dr. Jan Dirk Blom

Mascha Linszen (UMC Utrecht)

Prof. dr. Iris Sommer (Hersencentrum UMC Utrecht)

There are two forms of perception disorder:

The negative perception disorder, when someone loses his perception, getting blind, deaf, etc.

The positive perception disorder, when someone feels, hears things that are not there.

There are three forms of positive perception disorder :

Optical illusion

For example an Ames room, technique is also used at the filmset of Eternal Sunset of a spotless mind

"How to build an Ames Room", Ri Channel video

Hallucinations

How people experience a situation is subjective, if you have one incident with 12 witnesses you'le have 12 different stories. People hear and see things, but the brain focuses and interprets on his expectations and his bias. In everyday life a healthy brain experiences elements that are not there, thinking to hear a phone ringing, or children shouting. Often they are sure to have heard this because but the brain simulated this audio, it's a hallucination. Some are more sensitive for a hallucination if they had less sleep or maybe a personal trauma.

Often when people lose their natural perception they develop a positive perception disorder. If someone, for example, loses their hearing they could start to hear music. A similar form is a phantom pain when someone experiences pain on a body part that has been amputated.

Scientists are researching if the brain compensates the amount of information with a bias. This experiment proves that the brain has a big role in filling in the information. In this audio file you hear one sample three times. The first one is distorted, you can hardly hear what's been said. The second one is normal, now we hear clearly what has been said. When we listen to the first distorted version again it makes more sense, the brain filled in the distortion.  Listen to this

Sometimes people experience a spirit that they can't see, they assume this could be a ghost or some spiritual contact. Dr. Michael Persinger researched this phenomenon by creating a so called god helmed. ( See more on my research on this page make a link) By using magnetic fields in a helmet he activates the part of the brain, parietal lobe, responsible for orienting oneself in space and time, this produces the sense of connection to another spirit that's not there.

Prof. dr. Iris Sommer explains in her lecture that it's notable that imaginary voices created in someone's brain are often "spoken" in a quite simple vocabulary. This is because it is created at the right side of the brain. This side is more used for quick simple sentences, also used when a person swears, this is also often the case with these voices.

Deformations

when people experience things in a different form, there is an error constructing the visuals in the brains.

They could experience things bigger/smaller, diagonal instead of straight. They could experience things at a different speed, different frames a second, they call this akinetopsia.

Derealisation, when you experience reality as unreal, like a dream.

Depersonalisation, when you don't experience that your body is doing something.

Alice in Wonderland Syndrom, gives, for example, the impression that your hands are out of proportion.