2021
Perception & motor control
Short summary per chapter
BakedToast
EINDHOVEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
, Perception & Motor Control
Short Summary of Each Chapter
Chapter 1:
Sensation and perception involve highly complex neural processes that consume a substantial
proportion of the brain's cerebral cortex. Sensations (qualia) are primitive mental states or
experiences induced by sensory stimulation. Perceptions are complex, organized, and meaningful
experiences of objects or events.
Qualia can be divided into seven distinct sensory modalities. The modalities differ in terms of the
physical stimuli that excite them, the neural structures involved in transduction and sensory analysis,
and the functions they serve.
The three key elements of perception are: stimuli; neural responses; perceptions. Psychophysics
studies the relation between stimuli and perceptual experience, whilst neuroscience studies the
relation between stimuli and neural responses. Psychophysical linking hypotheses propose specific
links between perception and neural responses. Psychophysical methods to study perception were
developed by Weber and Fechner in the 1800s.
Cognitive neuroscience studies the parts of the nervous system which are involved in cognition using
lesions, clinical case studies, single-unit recordings, neuroimaging, and direct brain stimulation.
Computational neuroscience studies the computations performed by the nervous system, and the
internal representations they create. The foundations of computational neuroscience were laid by the
theories of three mathematicians: Alan Turing, Claude Shannon, and David Marr.
Chapter 2:
The senses of smell (olfaction) and taste (gustation) are known as chemical senses because their
receptor neurons extract information by means of chemical interactions.
Smell is mediated by olfactory receptor cells in the nose, which connect to mitral cells in the olfactory
bulb. Different substances create different patterns of activity across the mitral cells. Our ability to
recognise thousands of different odors is based on distinguishing different patterns of activity in mitral
cells. The sense of smell acts as an early warning system signalling whether to approach or eat the
source of a smell.
Gustatory receptors fall into five categories which relate to five types of substance, namely sugars,
salts, acids, plant alkaloids, and amino-acids. Tastes can be decomposed into corresponding
contributions from five taste qualities—sweetness, saltiness, sourness, bitterness, and savouriness or
umami. The sense of taste detects these five types of important substance in order to regulate their
intake.
Food flavor during eating involves an interaction between several perceptual sensations including
taste, smell, temperature, touch, sight, sound, and pain. Multi-modal brain cells that respond to
combinations of smell, taste, and sight may mediate flavor sensations.
