Daily Archives: 9 December, 2009

The Brain Is Still A Giant Mystery

Optical illusions are one of those things that seem fun and frivolous but actually illustrate deep insights into how brains function. I recently saw an illustration of the “hollow mask illusion” over at the Wired Magazine Blog and it made my jaw drop. In the illusion, a person viewing a concave face (like the back side of a hollow mask) perceives it as a convex face, like the front side of the mask. This illusion is so strong that even when a person is aware of the illusion they are still unable to see the concave face because the brain perceives it as a convex face.

Check out this video and see if you perceive the concave face as concave or convex, or both:

Description of video: hollow Charlie Chaplin mask is attached to a rod, rotating slowly. As the mask rotates and the concave inner side of the mask comes into view, it seems to pop outwards, becoming convex.

I have watched this video upward of ten times, and no amount of anticipation, concentration, stern looks, putting hands on hips, or even cursing has allowed me to see the concave side of the mask as concave. Every single time, the visual information goes into my brain and some filter is applied to the raw information and POOF it’s convex again. It seems that this illusion works only for human faces, as “it doesn’t work well with other objects, or even with upside-down faces.” This suggests that there is a program in the brain trying really hard to find face-like patterns in visual information – this is why we see faces in clouds, or snow covered mailboxes or even grilled cheese sandwiches. We can also recognize faces when they are distorted or compressed or otherwise obscured:

The New York Times > Science > Image > Distorted or Blurry, the Face Shines ThroughThis is likely a developed ability to allow us to recognize faces quickly and unconsciously instead of having to consciously process the facial features and determine that it was a face. It was helpful to humans to be able to recognize faces of other humans, both to determine that they were human and to distinguish them from other humans.

The results of a recent study strengthen the suggestion that this is a process applied by the brain on received visual input. Two researches in London found that people with schizophrenia did not experience the illusion and reported seeing concave faces. When they used an fMRI scanner to measure brain activity on people with and without schizophrenia while viewing the rotating mask, there was a significant difference between the brain activity of people with and without schizophrenia:

[The researchers] analyzed the fMRI data using a relatively new technique called dynamic causal modeling, which allowed them to measure how different brain regions were interacting during the task. When [neurotypical] subjects looked at the concave faces, connections strengthened between the frontoparietal network, which is involved in top-down processing, and the visual areas of the brain that receive information from the eyes. In patients with schizophrenia, no such strengthening occurred.

Dima thinks when [neurotypical] subjects see the illusion, which is somewhat ambiguous, their brains strengthen this connection such that what they expect — a normal face — becomes more influential, overpowering the actual, though unlikely, visual information. [People with s]chizophrenia , meanwhile, may be unable to modulate this pathway, accepting the concave face as reality.

What I think is most interesting about all this is the clear illustration that the functioning of the brain is still largely a mystery to us. This illusion basically exploits a processing error that occurs in neurotypical brains and, incidentally, is used in a lot of the illusions at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion ride. But there are so many other processing glitches that instead of being seen as an amusing and harmless byproduct of a neurotypical brain, are seen as problematic and annoying if they are credited at all. I work and concentrate better when I play music or I take a three minute break to play Bejeweled. Why? I have no idea. But I doubt that any supervisor asking me why I’m playing Bejeweled could explain to me why their brain perceives the concave mask as convex. Or could stop doing it if they just tried a little harder. Maybe if we had a better understanding of how brains worked it would be easier for people to understand and credit the reality of mental disabilities.

Note: clearly, this illusion is not a diagnostic test for schizophrenia and should not be treated as such.

Recommended Reading for December 9

Colored Spade

Little black girls in small Maine towns never do. Little black girls with white parents in small Maine towns are just confused. And little black girls with mental illnesses and white parents in small Maine towns are very confused.

I still don’t know my first mother, but I would like to. I know she has mental illness, like I do. I know I have a sister. I’d like to know them very much. I feel lost, drifting. It doesn’t matter how much the polar bear loves the panda cub, the panda cub will still never be a polar bear, even if she tries to bleach away her blackness.

“It”

So, me and my aide were at the park with one of my dog-walking clients. This lady and her dog come in (we are the only people there) and naturally we start chatting because her dog and my client are playing. She directs all of her conversation to my aide, who says “EVA’S a dog walker and SHE sometimes comes here” etc.

Bearing Witness

This story doesn’t surprise me. I hear from families with children with disabilities and my nephew also has a disability that requires equipment. Claims are denied and families scramble to keep the child involved in the community, using whatever they can afford. As a child grows into adolescence, he/she may find himself/herself in the same situation as the Orlando youngster- using equipment designed for babies and toddlers even when it’s not medically necessary. (There’s an important distinction there- I’m not blaming parents for using suitable equipment for safety or medical reasons. ) It can happen to adults too.

Transcript: Autism Women’s Network interview with Kristina Chew: The ABCs of IEPs

Here’s a transcript of Sharon daVanport and Tricia Kenney’s interview with Kristina Chew about Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) for the newly-founded Autism Women’s Network radio show.


The Autism Women’s Network mission statement is: “To provide effective supports to autistic females of all ages through s sense of community, advocacy and resources.” We also want to let everyone know, too, that our radio show is going to be supportive of all people on the spectrum, and today is a really good example of that.

We have Kristina Chew as our guest today. Kristina is a professor at Saint Peter’s College, and I believe, if I’m not mistaken, Saint Peter’s College is in New Jersey….

Personal Experience from Kate, who recovered from Anorexia

I am Kate, 31 and in recovery from anorexia. My experience of seeking treatment has taught me that often you have to fight the system and keep persisting until your voice is heard.
I first sought treatment for anorexia when I was in the early staged of the illness, aged 17, back in 1995. My family doctor weighed me and put me on a course of antidepressants. He told me that even Princess Diana had an eating disorder and implied that it was simply a phase. I felt like a fraud as I’d gone there hoping for help with my eating disorder and received nothing but medication.

Over a period of a year I saw my doctor monthly to be weighed and each time my medication was either increased or switched. Unsurprisingly, the medication had little or no impact on my illness. Eventually I was misdiagnosed again, this time with Chronic Fatigue and referred to a specialist who gave me yet more medication and put me on a graduated exercise programme to rebuild my strength. Looking back it is rather ironic that the very treatment of exercise was prescribed to an anorexic and years later my exercise addiction landed me in the EDU!

Anna History Rants: Harlan Lane

My name is Laurent Clerc. I am eighty-three years old. My hair is white, my skin wrinkled and scarred, my posture crooked; I shuffle when I walk. Undoubtedly my life will soon end in this time and place: 1896, Hartford, Connecticut. I spend most of my day sitting alone at my dining room window, looking at my orchard and remembering. I also read the paper and occasionally friends come to visit. I know what’s going on. Important people, distinguished gentlemen, are repudiating the cause to which I have devoted my life. Endowed with the sacred trust of my people’s welfare, they seek, without consulting us, to prevent our worship, marriage, and procreation, to stultify our education, and to banish our mother tongue simply because our way and our language are different from theirs….

– Lane, Harlan, When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf, pg 3.

I have issues with Lane. He outright states in his introduction that he made stuff up when he couldn’t find out what happened, and I feel he wrote well-researched historical fiction rather than an actual history book.

But still. Lane didn’t write the first book about deafness from the POV of actual deaf people (Lane is Hearing – he cites Jack R Gannon’s book as the first history written by someone who was Deaf), but he wrote the one that launched a thousand ships, so to speak. He challenged, quite viciously, the idea that deafness was something to be “conquered”, and argued that a deaf-focused history was necessary.
Continue reading Anna History Rants: Harlan Lane