Zaira Cattaneo and Tomaso Vecchi
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262015035
- eISBN:
- 9780262295819
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262015035.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Vision
Can a blind person see? The very idea seems paradoxical. And yet, if we conceive of “seeing” as the ability to generate internal mental representations that may contain visual details, the idea of ...
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Can a blind person see? The very idea seems paradoxical. And yet, if we conceive of “seeing” as the ability to generate internal mental representations that may contain visual details, the idea of blind vision becomes a concept worth investigating. This book examines the effects of blindness and other types of visual deficits on the development and functioning of the human cognitive system. Drawing on behavioral and neurophysiological data, it analyzes research on mental imagery, spatial cognition, and compensatory mechanisms at the sensorial, cognitive, and cortical levels in individuals with complete or profound visual impairment. The authors find that the brain does not need eyes to “see.” They address critical questions of broad importance: The relationship of visual perception to imagery and working memory and the extent to which mental imagery depends on normal vision; the functional and neural relationships between vision and the other senses; the specific aspects of the visual experience which are crucial to cognitive development or specific cognitive mechanisms; and the extraordinary plasticity of the brain—as illustrated by the way that, in the blind, the visual cortex may be reorganized to support other perceptual or cognitive functions. In the absence of vision, the other senses work as functional substitutes and are often improved—pointing to the importance of the other senses in cognition.Less
Can a blind person see? The very idea seems paradoxical. And yet, if we conceive of “seeing” as the ability to generate internal mental representations that may contain visual details, the idea of blind vision becomes a concept worth investigating. This book examines the effects of blindness and other types of visual deficits on the development and functioning of the human cognitive system. Drawing on behavioral and neurophysiological data, it analyzes research on mental imagery, spatial cognition, and compensatory mechanisms at the sensorial, cognitive, and cortical levels in individuals with complete or profound visual impairment. The authors find that the brain does not need eyes to “see.” They address critical questions of broad importance: The relationship of visual perception to imagery and working memory and the extent to which mental imagery depends on normal vision; the functional and neural relationships between vision and the other senses; the specific aspects of the visual experience which are crucial to cognitive development or specific cognitive mechanisms; and the extraordinary plasticity of the brain—as illustrated by the way that, in the blind, the visual cortex may be reorganized to support other perceptual or cognitive functions. In the absence of vision, the other senses work as functional substitutes and are often improved—pointing to the importance of the other senses in cognition.
Frank Cézilly and Frédéric Thomas
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- December 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199642236
- eISBN:
- 9780191774621
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199642236.003.0011
- Subject:
- Biology, Disease Ecology / Epidemiology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
At an evolutionary level, behavioural manipulation occurs when an individual – the manipulator – increases its own fitness through altering or channelling the behaviour of another individual in ways ...
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At an evolutionary level, behavioural manipulation occurs when an individual – the manipulator – increases its own fitness through altering or channelling the behaviour of another individual in ways that are detrimental to that of the manipulated individual. It follows that behavioural manipulation is not necessarily limited to host–parasite systems. This chapter reviews the literature on behavioural manipulation outside the world of parasites, and introduces a gradual categorization, ranging from sensory exploitation to physiological manipulation, based on the degree of behavioural control imposed by one individual over another. Although the main modes used by parasites to achieve behavioural manipulation have been reported in free-living species, claimed cases of manipulation might be prone to false identification and misinterpretation, often because of a lack of careful analysis. Finally, the chapter discusses the similarities and dissimilarities in behavioural manipulation between parasitic and free-living organisms, emphasizing differences in cognitive abilities and the duration of the manipulative interaction.Less
At an evolutionary level, behavioural manipulation occurs when an individual – the manipulator – increases its own fitness through altering or channelling the behaviour of another individual in ways that are detrimental to that of the manipulated individual. It follows that behavioural manipulation is not necessarily limited to host–parasite systems. This chapter reviews the literature on behavioural manipulation outside the world of parasites, and introduces a gradual categorization, ranging from sensory exploitation to physiological manipulation, based on the degree of behavioural control imposed by one individual over another. Although the main modes used by parasites to achieve behavioural manipulation have been reported in free-living species, claimed cases of manipulation might be prone to false identification and misinterpretation, often because of a lack of careful analysis. Finally, the chapter discusses the similarities and dissimilarities in behavioural manipulation between parasitic and free-living organisms, emphasizing differences in cognitive abilities and the duration of the manipulative interaction.
