Perception

It's a relatively common experience to cringe while listening to a recording of your own voice. This Popular Science article offers physiological explanations for the discrepancy between what we hear when we speak versus what others hear. The piece also expands on the psychology behind this discontent, and how our voices influence our self-perception and social interactions.

Every brain wokrs powerfully behind the scenes, helping individuals think and feel through their day. Pareidolia, the tendency to find meaningful patterns within otherwise random objects, is one fascinating ability. Common examples of pareidolia include the game of finding shapes in clouds, or the uncanny way white noise can begin to produce musical or rhythmic elements. Scientists claim there is a correlation between an individual's tendency to perceive these kinds of patterns in nebulous things and their relative creativity.

Hallucinations result from the stimulation of parts of the brain without any external object. Some of the more extreme types of hallucination occur in blind people reporting powerful perceptions of sight, a condition known as Charles Bonnet Syndrome. But even people with typical eyesight experience minute hallucinations, including when the brain "fills in" the space where your retina causes a blind spot in the center of your gaze. This video explains the mechanism behind hallucinations and how they help explain normal perception of the world.

When you close your eyes, do you see static or colorful patterns or an "intrinsic grey" known as Eigengrau in German? This variation of our internal experiences is just the tip of the iceberg, one that scientists are increasingly studying and...

A growing number of people on social media claim to have a perceptual condition that lets them smell colors, see music, or taste sounds. But do they really?

Sensory cross talk may underlie ability to see one’s own hand moving when it’s pitch black.