Description
What Is Abnormal about Hallucinations, Sensation or Perception? Our sensory neurons fire continuously at a low baseline rate. Sometimes they fire at levels higher or lower than their baselines. Hallucinations may be thought of as interpretations of neurons that for reasons related to psychiatric problems show abnormally high firing rates in the absence of external stimuli. When the decision-making neurons in the brain receive input from the abnormally firing lower-order neurons, the response is to try to interpret the message. An analogy can be drawn here to dreams. When we sleep, our brains are normally quite active within both REM and NREM sleep. We interpret our cortical activity as being real because the kinds of neural signals being generated are similar to those we encounter during normal, waking activities. In these cases, the problem is likely to be perceptual rather than sensory because it is the interpretation process that is affected.
1. What is the response to a higher-than-normal firing rate that occurs in the absence of a stimulus?
2. What is a hallucination?
3. Do normal people ever hallucinate? If so, do they do it regularly?
Select a choice for the following scenario: and explain your choice:
Sean loves anchovy, mushroom, and double-cheese pizza on a whole-wheat crust from his favorite pizza spot. He brings a pizza back to his roommate, Danny, to give him a chance to taste his favorite pizza! Sean is stunned by Danny’s reaction to the pizza: “Epic fail! Dude, this is gross!” Danny hates the pizza. What does this example demonstrate:
(a) Danny may not have the taste receptors for umami (look up this word).
(b) Although Sean and Danny have similar tongue anatomy, perception is still a subjective process. Sean is apparently a big umami fan, but Danny is not.
(c) Danny may have a disorder of the olfatory epithelium.
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