When believing becomes seeing, or how the brain learns to fill in the blanks

Our ability to learn to see things that may be new or unfamiliar to us is a plus; it allows us to adapt to changes in our surrounding environment. A big benefit is that it allows us to learn to do new tasks, such as becoming skilled at seeing the mere suggestion of a tumor on a mammogram. Learning to increase our sensitivity to a visual stimulus also seems to come at a cost, according to new research by Takeo Watanabe, an associate professor and director of the Vision Science Laboratory in Boston University’s Department of Psychology.

It seems when learning to see things that are there, we also learn to see things that aren’t.

“It’s a manifestation of overlearning,” says Watanabe, “such as when we find a man’s face on Mars’ surface or in a forest or on a cloud. We’ve overlearned human faces so we see them where they aren’t.”

This double-edged result has to do with a learning characteristic known as plasticity, the brain’s ability to remold its responses because of its task-specific information repeatedly presented to it through its visual sensory system.

Watanabe and his team of researchers report their findings in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and the Human Frontier Science Program.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 14 Jun 2005
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