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Vision: the mismatch between external reality and the filtered and distorted perceptions that are provided by sensory processing of information | |
Assignment Goals
Source Material
Student Instructions
Guiding Questions
Writing Prompt
| Assignment Goals |
The goal for this assignment is to build an appreciation of the marvelous tailoring of evolution that makes it possible for us to extract complex information from sensory input. You will apply general principles that are true for all the senses to explore in detail the mismatch between external reality and the filtered and distorted perceptions that are provided by sensory processing of information.
Sensory input, the information flow into the brain, is alike for all the sensory systems including taste, touch, vision, hearing, smell, pain, equilibrium, blood pressure, chemoreception, and proprioception. In this activity, you will investigate in detail one example showing how the sensory nervous system both dissects and integrates information before sending that information to the brain. By dividing a sensory field into small areas that can be monitored individually, sensory neurons extract detailed information that is then integrated by combining features within and between receptive fields to determine the relationships between stimuli.
One of the general principles that you will apply is the concept that nerve cell depolarization opens calcium channels, and then the influx of calcium triggers exocytosis of synaptic vesicles and neurotransmitter release. Nerve cell hyperpolarization makes it less likely that calcium channels will open so that there will be less of a chance for calcium to signal neurotransmitter release.
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| Student Instructions |
Before you begin, use your textbook and glossary to become familiar with these basic structures and functions:
Then look at a white wall in bright light. Look at the wall through a dark opaque tube with one eye, and compare that brightness to the brightness of the wall as seen through the other eye without the tube. To understand this distortion (since we know that the wall has the same brightness with and without the tube) it is necessary to understand how information is processed before it is sent by the ganglion cells through the optic nerve to the brain.
Your textbook does not have enough detailed information to help you understand this process, so fill in the details be referring to the photocopy provided and to the recommended web-based Source materials. The same recommended web resources are listed within CourseInfo and as part of this CPR assignment.
| Guiding Questions |
| Writing Prompt |
Your assignment is to trace the steps in the signal transduction pathways that connect reception of the external light signal in the eye to transmission of the information about the brightness of the light from the ganglion cells through the optic nerve. Write in paragraph form and use the html flags at the beginning and at the end of each paragraph. Any time you do not write in your own words, use quotation marks and include a bibliography.
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