Perception and the Senses

In Our Time: Science

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2005

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss perception: how the brain reacts to the mass of data continually crowding it. Barry Stein's laboratory at Wake Forest University in the United States found that the shape of a right angle drawn on the hand of a chimpanzee starts the visual part of the brain working, even when the shape has not been seen. It has also been discovered that babies learn by touch before they can properly make sense of visual data, and that the senses of smell and taste chemically combine to give us flavour.Perception is a tangled web of processes and so much of what we see, hear and touch is determined by our own expectations that it raises the question of whether we ever truly perceive what others do.What governs our perception of the world? And are we correct to distinguish between sight, sound, smell, touch and taste when they appear to influence each other so very much?With Richard Gregory, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Experimental Psychology, Bristol University; David Moore, Director of the Medical Research Council Institute of Hearing Research, University of Nottingham; Gemma Calvert, Reader in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Bath.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for Down learning the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.uk.
0:10.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:12.0	Hello, Barry Stein's laboratory at Wake Forest University in the United States
0:16.2	found that the shape of a right angle drawn on the hand of a chimpanzee starts the
0:21.1	visual part of the brain working, even when the shape hasn't been seen.
0:25.0	It's also been discovered that babies learn by touch before they can properly make sense of visual data
0:31.0	and that the senses of smell and taste chemically combined to give us
0:34.8	flavor.
0:36.1	Perception is a tangled web of processes and so much of what we see here and touch is determined
0:41.0	by our own expectations that it raises the question of whether we ever truly perceive what others do.
0:46.4	What governs our perception of the world?
0:48.5	And are we correct to distinguish between sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste when
0:51.9	they appear to influence each other so very much.
0:54.5	With me to discuss perception and the senses are Jemmer Calvert, reader in cognitive neuroscience
0:59.6	at the University of Bath, Richard Gregory, senior Research Fellow in the Department of Experimental Psychology
1:04.9	at Bristol University, and David Moore, Director for the Medical Research Council Institute
1:09.7	of Hearing Research at the University of Nottingham.
1:13.0	Richard Gregory, there are two stages to the processes of seeing things,
1:17.2	reception and perception.
1:18.8	Can you outline those two stages, please?
1:21.3	Yes, I think that's absolutely the right way of starting and I think if you
1:24.4	look at the evolution of perception which incidentally we don't really understand
	...

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