PSL300H1 Lecture Notes - Sensory Processing, Optic Nerve, Cornea
Document Summary
Psl study notes first professor tweed lecture 2013. Senses guide behaviour for survival and reproduction. Senses incomplete/ambiguous information, so brain must infer. Inference is unconscious, processes using 10 billion neurons efficiently. These assumptions are not rigid; one assumption can override another. The brain guesses based on experience, but can be fooled for example, visual illusions. Illusion does not disappear if you understand it. Simplest cells are cups of light-sensitive cells so light at different places excite different cells. Can infer where light is, based on which cells are active dawn of inference. Cup becomes pinhole by closing in the walls and creating pinhole. Pinhole eye casts inverted images on back of eye. Perfect focus by ensuring light from only one direction. Simple eye: light enters via small hole at front, focused on inner surface (retina) Simple eye used by all vertebrates, squid, spider, nautilus. Pupil widens in darkness to allow more light in.
