(no subject)

[anhinga_anhinga]

Reading "An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sacks.

It has 7 stories, I've just read the first one, about an artist who had a sudden onset of cerebral achromatopsia. It's a nice reading and a very interesting source of introspective information.

It is not clear, whether what Sacks writes about the role of V4 is entirely correct (or what is the status of his remark that Semir Zeki figured out how to induce this state temporarily in human using transcranial magnetic stumulation in light of uncertainties with V4). When one reads something which is so well written, one tends to forget that all this (and almost everything else in neuroscience) should be taken with a grain of salt.

Still, an entirely worthwhile reading...

I wonder whether I would risk to undertake such a trip if it were possible, just to see what this experience is like "with my own eyes" (temporary loss of colors in one's vision [or a half-field of vision] via transcranial magnetic stimulation)...


Русская версия другой его книжки: Человек, который принял жену за шляпу.

Comments

[spamsink]

Now I live in a more rustic setting (a detached house with a front lawn and a backyard) than I used to, and when I go out at night to turn on the watering system, I cannot tell the colors of the flowers, because I do not remeber which are which. When the cones are off and you have no way to correlate other visible traits with the expected colors, the perceived vision is truly monochromatic. It is eerie sometimes, no doubt.