TED Talk Thursday – Pawan Sinha on how brains learn to see

According to ted.com: “Pawan Sinha details his groundbreaking research into how the brain’s visual system develops. Sinha and his team provide free vision-restoring treatment to children born blind, and then study how their brains learn to interpret visual data. The work offers insights into neuroscience, engineering and even autism.”

“Pawan Sinha researches how our brains interpret what our eyes see — and uses that research to give blind children the gift of sight.”

Enjoy this insightful talk:

For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery from www.ted.com:

“TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”

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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!

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TED Talk Thursdays – Beau Lotto: Optical illusions show how we see

For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery of them from www.ted.com:

“TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize”

Today’s video shows us optical illusions and how they effect what we see. What we see is much more about the brain than it is about the eyes. In watching this video I can’t help but ask the question, “Do we really ever know if what we are seeing is ‘real’?” And what makes something real? Is there anything that is “real” or is it all the perceptions of our brains? Thoughts to ponder as you watch.

In describing this video ted.com says:

“Beau Lotto’s color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can’t normally see: how your brain works. This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what’s really out there.”

“Beau Lotto is founder of Lottolab, a hybrid art studio and science lab. With glowing, interactive sculpture — and good, old-fashioned peer-reviewed research — he’s illuminating the mysteries of the brain’s visual system.”

Enjoy!

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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!

Be sure to Subscribe to this blog either by RSS or Email via the forms on the top right column of the page.