Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information coming from body receptors and sensory organs into CNS.

learn more… | top users | synonyms

24
votes
4answers
600 views

Human perception of time depending on age

From what I can tell and what thus far all people with whom I discussed this subject confirmed is that time appears to "accelerate" as we age. Digging a little, most explanations I found basically ...
8
votes
2answers
107 views

Why are melodies/harmonies perceived as pleasurable by humans?

Is there any evolutionary advantage to finding melodies or harmonies pleasurable? Does the ear pick up these particular oscillating waves differently from other sounds, and if so, how does that affect ...
7
votes
2answers
248 views

How do we know the brain flips images projected on the retina back around?

Why do we turn images upside down again rather than dealing with them directly, still vertically rotated after passing through our lens? I don't see how that would cause any problems, and how we'd ...
7
votes
1answer
91 views

What portions of the brain have drastic changes in activation when we “sense” someone is there?

I was watching an old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie ("Commando") where he plays an elite soldier (surprise). An enemy tries to sneak up on him, and Arnold says that he smelled the other guy ...
6
votes
2answers
112 views

How can you test what color different people perceive?

If I would show someone a yellow object and ask them, "is this object yellow?" That person would say "yes". But I could never know if my perception of the color yellow is the same as that other ...
6
votes
1answer
78 views

Why are pilots under the illusion of gaining altitude without doing so?

We had a lecture about the balancing systems of the body (mainly the otolith organ / semilunar canals) in which a case was described where a pilot crashed into a ship. He was supposed to keep his ...
3
votes
1answer
2k views

Why are (some) cats attracted by bleach?

(Sorry if this question is only partly biological) I have noticed that several cats (including the one that keeps sleeping in my house), are fond of the odor of bleach (eau de Javel) and chlorine. ...
2
votes
1answer
51 views

Do siblings have a bias toward believing they look different from each other?

Anecdotally, I have observed (myself included) that siblings tend to think that they look less similar to each other than an unrelated observer would say. Is there any experimental data to back this ...
2
votes
0answers
31 views

What determines the (perceived) frequency of tinnitus?

I noticed that every time I suffer temporary tinnitus after going to a very loud concert, the frequency I perceive is identical. I'd put it somewhere around 17KHz, but it's difficult to pin down with ...
1
vote
1answer
29 views

What is the brightest color a light source that only emits blue frequency light can achieve?

Let's say there is a luminous light bulb that only emits blue light, and you (or a camera if you prefer) look at it from a close distance. Will the maximum brightness perceived not have any "white" to ...
1
vote
1answer
115 views

Does coloring affect the perception of depth?

I have a question about the mechanics of human vision which may be as much of a physics question as it is a biology/physiology question. I noticed that if I try to imagine a clear blue daytime sky ...
0
votes
0answers
22 views

Perception of distant lights without glasses

I am fairly short-sighted and wear glasses pretty much all the time. Naively, I would expect that when I take my glasses off, the image I see should look very much the same as as a photograph that's ...