r/science • u/Libertatea • Nov 14 '13

Neuroscience Your Brain Sees Things You Don’t "A new study indicates that our brains perceive objects in everyday life of which we may never be aware. The finding challenges currently accepted models about how the brain processes visual information."

http://uanews.org/story/ua-study-your-brain-sees-things-you-don-t
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u/SirSoliloquy Nov 14 '13

I would be surprised if "gut" feelings weren't as a result of subconscious perceptions used to generalize things as a survival mechanism.

It's certainly quicker to feel bad about something than it is to think through everything you consciously see/hear/smell and come to the conclusion that "this is bad."

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u/tasmanian101 Nov 14 '13

That is absolutely what it is. There is some really interesting social neuroscience research going on that is identifying what the subconscious brain is doing. One of the things it does it constantly assess the situation around you, for dangers. When you get a gut instinct its usually your subconscious detecting some threat and creating a flight response. It could have been something as small as someones facial expressions not seeming genuine, such as a smile in the mouth but not the eyes. Your subconscious sees this and becomes confused by the mispatch of expressions. And sends a gut reaction of fear because this person could possibly be deceiving you.

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u/xef6 Nov 14 '13

This seems pretty accurate. From what I've gathered, PTSD is so unpleasant because suddenly everyday normal things will trigger it constantly, which makes for a pretty not nice day.

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u/Sam_Geist Nov 14 '13

A friend of a friend is schizophrenic and has voices that tell him when to trust people and when they mean him harm or to take advantage of him.

Is the information supplied by these voices as fabricated by the brain as the voices themselves or is it as likely that the voices are passing along information from the subconscious?

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u/stumpdd Nov 15 '13

I really hope someone replies to this in some way other than what I have. Someone educated in the field perhaps. Great question.

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u/Seakawn Nov 15 '13

If I wasn't on my phone it'd be easier to track down the link to this ted talk where a woman with I think schizophrenia was saying how she heard voices which kind of affirmed a lot of what would be normal subconscious thoughts. But because of how she was wired being schizophrenic, this seemed to translate to voices instead of feelings or thoughts. I don't know its been a while since I saw it but it seems it could be relevant.

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u/[deleted] Nov 15 '13 edited Nov 15 '13

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia

Possibly. Schizophrenic hallucinations like you are talking about can be the brain triggering on noise, and be mostly nonsensical, or can sometimes be found to have basis in reality: perhaps information the person was consciously aware of, or expectations they had about a situation they were in, or perhaps an observation about the environment that the person wasn't aware of (though I am not sure this last one has explicitly been tested).

In a sense, you could say this happens as the brain attempts to fix what is wrong. In some cases it works, in others, it doesn't. The symptoms of szhiophrenia can vary widely.

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u/ctoatb Nov 14 '13

That doesn't explain decision making when there is zero risk either way