Welcome to Ravall, a blog run by a group of university students that covers a wide array of technology/science related topics. If you like what we do, feel free to follow us on twitter @ravall_blog, subscribe to our RSS feed in addition to voting for us on Google. Lastly, take the time to leave a comment. We love to see your viewpoints on topics covered.
In 1978 my grandfather was involved in a severe motorcycle accident while travelling to work. Unfortunately, transportation safety wasn’t much of a concern as it is now (especially true in India) and a few individuals wore helmets while riding their bikes. Needless to say, the force from the collision threw my grandfather off his bike and against a roadside curb. Without protection from an helmet, his head directly took a majority of the impact from the collision. Although my grandfather was lucky to not have experienced any coning in areas critical for respiration and other life supporting activities, the same could not have been said for the cerebellum. When his head met the curb, the portion that received direct impact was the brainstem region (the cerebellum is located right behind the pons of the brainstem). In turn, a lesion was formed in the area and resulted in our topic of discussion today: Cerebellar ataxia.
While browsing Reddit this week, I came across an optical illusion dealing with our perception of colours. The image in question (attached below) uses identical colours to generate a perception of blue and green spiraling bands (Yes, those bands really are just one colour). Needless to say, there was much amazement surrounding the image over at Discovermagazine’s blog post. Unfortunately, not a single individual on Reddit or Discovermaganize was able to name this infamous effect (let alone explain it). As a result, having taken Sensory and Perception recently I thought it would be interesting to discuss Lateral Inhibition and it’s impact’s on our perception of colours.
One of the more interesting topics covered in our Sensory Perception class last semester was the McGurk effect. Named after Henry McGurk, the phenomenon highlights the complexity of the perceptual process and the involvement of various brain regions. As shown in the demonstration above, the McGurk effect displays the fact that our perception of speech is influenced not only by sound, but also by vision. In this article, we will briefly examine why the McGurk effect occurs.
Evernote makes it easy to remember things big and small from your notable life using your computer, phone, and the web. Feel free to add our content to your account by clicking the button below:
