Distortions of Perception- Chapter 9

Perception

Occurs when sensory information reaches the brain and is meaningfully interpreted

Perceptual distortion

Involves a mismatch between perceptual experiences and physical reality. When what you see doesn’t match what’s actually real. Your brain misperceives reality for no clear reason.

Visual illusions

A misperception of what we see, caused by the brain misinterpreting visual info. There's a mismatch between what we see and what’s real. Even when we know it's an illusion, we still see it the same way.

Ames room illusion

Involves people appearing smaller or larger depending on where they’re standing. Based on the unusual structure of the room

Agnosia

Characterised by loss or impairment of the ability to recognise and identify objects, people, sounds or other sensory stimuli. Not due to issues with sense organs, attention, or memory, and usually affects one sense, like vision or hearing.

Types of agnosia

• Apperceptive Visual Agnosia: Inability to recognise objects

• Associative Visual Agnosia: Inability to link what you see to what you know

• Prosopagnosia: Face blindness to others and themselves

• Simultanagnosia: Inability to recognise objects if there is more than 1

• Topographical Agnosia: Navigation difficulty in furmiliar scenes

• Colour Agnosia: Colour identification loss

• Agnosic Alexia: Reading difficulty

Synaesthesia

A perceptual experience where one sense triggers additional sensations in another, enhancing the overall experience. It is not a disease and usually does not interfere with daily functioning.

Types of synaesthesia

• Mirror-Touch Synaesthesia: Feel touch by seeing others touched

• Auditory-Tactile Synaesthesia: Sounds trigger body sensations

• Word-Gustatory Synaesthesia: Taste flavors from words

• Pain Synaesthesia: Feel pain by seeing others in pain

• Chromesthesia: See colours from sounds, tastes, or odors

• Chromatic Audition: Sounds trigger colour

• Time-Space Synaesthesia: Time has spatial locations

Spatial Neglect

A neurological disorder where individuals ignore one side of their world despite normal senses. Common in stroke victims with right parietal lobe damage. Right-side neglect occurs less often with left hemisphere damage.