WOAH! hold on...

[GutZ]

As I was sitting at my horrible temp job thinking I wish I was somewhere else, earlier as I was testing out there sensors and everyone looking at me as if I was crazy I realized something. How is it I could picture myself on a beach without having the input? Or in other words how does my brain project an image or even save an image without my eyes even being need.

 

It just dawn on me as being weird....

[Paralith]

the input, in this case, comes from your stored memories. these memories activate your visual cortex, enabling you to "see" yourself at the beach.

[GutZ]

Yeah but how does your visual cortex do that?

[Paralith]

Yeah but how does your visual cortex do that?

 

well, i think your visual cortex doesn't do much more than process the information that it's supplied with by the area of your brain that holds memories. just as you don't really see what your eyes take in until its processed by your visual cortex. If supplied with visual information of some kind or another, the visual cortex just does its thing.

 

Probably the neuroscientists in the crowd can do a lot better job explaining this than I can.

[GutZ]

Thank-you!

 

I guess my main question are the limitations, right? Like if the eye can take on x amount of photons that's the limitation of how much visual information it can store, but is it possible to go beyond that limitation?

[Paralith]

eep - definitely have to refer to the neuroscientists on this one. /^^ very interesting question though, I agree.

[CharonY]

I guess my main question are the limitations, right? Like if the eye can take on x amount of photons that's the limitation of how much visual information it can store, but is it possible to go beyond that limitation?

 

I don't quite understand your question. The photoreceptors react to incoming photons and hyperpolarize the cell (so light actually reduces the potential of the cell) in subsequent layers the information is already processed due to the way subsequen bipolar- and ganglia cells are connected (or more precisely, how they react to the secreted neurotransmitter).

So essentially the resolution is defined for one by the density of photoreceptors and how many of these are interconnected to produce signals.

Or, if you refer to how much information is stored in the retina or area I the answer is almost nothing. On the retina level adaptation to light intensities occur and the visual cortex apparently works as having some kind of short term cache of which the information has quickly transferred to the short term memory (otherwise it will get lost).

 

 

Regarding the visualization memories:

the primary visual cortex is indeed involved in the primary procession of visual information, however if you visualize something in your mind, you are first activating other areas which are involved in recreating memories. The precise areas depend on what you actually recall. For instance spatial information is recalled differently to, say, episodic memories. At least in dreams visual memories are then partly "reenacted" with the help of the visual cortex, and this might be also true in daydreams.