The Brain's Sense of Movement
The neuroscientist Alain Berthoz experimented on Russian astronauts in space to answer these questions: How does weightlessness affect motion? How are motion and three-dimensional space perceived? In this erudite and witty book, Berthoz describes how human beings on earth perceive and control bodily movement. Reviewing a wealth of research in neurophysiology and experimental psychology, he argues for a rethinking of the traditional separation between action and perception, and for the division of perception into five senses.

In Berthoz’s view, perception and cognition are inherently predictive, functioning to allow us to anticipate the consequences of current or potential actions. The brain acts like a simulator that is constantly inventing models to project onto the changing world, models that are corrected by steady, minute feedback from the world. We move in the direction we are looking, anticipate the trajectory of a falling ball, recover when we stumble, and continually update our own physical position, all thanks to this sense of movement.

This interpretation of perception and action allows Berthoz, in The Brain’s Sense of Movement, to focus on psychological phenomena largely ignored in standard texts: proprioception and kinaesthesis, the mechanisms that maintain balance and coordinate actions, and basic perceptual and memory processes involved in navigation.

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The Brain's Sense of Movement
The neuroscientist Alain Berthoz experimented on Russian astronauts in space to answer these questions: How does weightlessness affect motion? How are motion and three-dimensional space perceived? In this erudite and witty book, Berthoz describes how human beings on earth perceive and control bodily movement. Reviewing a wealth of research in neurophysiology and experimental psychology, he argues for a rethinking of the traditional separation between action and perception, and for the division of perception into five senses.

In Berthoz’s view, perception and cognition are inherently predictive, functioning to allow us to anticipate the consequences of current or potential actions. The brain acts like a simulator that is constantly inventing models to project onto the changing world, models that are corrected by steady, minute feedback from the world. We move in the direction we are looking, anticipate the trajectory of a falling ball, recover when we stumble, and continually update our own physical position, all thanks to this sense of movement.

This interpretation of perception and action allows Berthoz, in The Brain’s Sense of Movement, to focus on psychological phenomena largely ignored in standard texts: proprioception and kinaesthesis, the mechanisms that maintain balance and coordinate actions, and basic perceptual and memory processes involved in navigation.

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The Brain's Sense of Movement

The Brain's Sense of Movement

The Brain's Sense of Movement

The Brain's Sense of Movement

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Overview

The neuroscientist Alain Berthoz experimented on Russian astronauts in space to answer these questions: How does weightlessness affect motion? How are motion and three-dimensional space perceived? In this erudite and witty book, Berthoz describes how human beings on earth perceive and control bodily movement. Reviewing a wealth of research in neurophysiology and experimental psychology, he argues for a rethinking of the traditional separation between action and perception, and for the division of perception into five senses.

In Berthoz’s view, perception and cognition are inherently predictive, functioning to allow us to anticipate the consequences of current or potential actions. The brain acts like a simulator that is constantly inventing models to project onto the changing world, models that are corrected by steady, minute feedback from the world. We move in the direction we are looking, anticipate the trajectory of a falling ball, recover when we stumble, and continually update our own physical position, all thanks to this sense of movement.

This interpretation of perception and action allows Berthoz, in The Brain’s Sense of Movement, to focus on psychological phenomena largely ignored in standard texts: proprioception and kinaesthesis, the mechanisms that maintain balance and coordinate actions, and basic perceptual and memory processes involved in navigation.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674009806
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 09/30/2002
Series: Perspectives in Cognitive Neuroscience , #10
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 352
Product dimensions: 5.69(w) x 8.88(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Alain Berthoz is Emeritus Professor at the Collège de France and Director of the Laboratory of Physiology of Perception and Action at the CNRS.

Table of Contents

Introduction

I. Perception Is Simulated Action

The Motor Theory of Perception

The Concept of Acceptor of the Results of Action

Bernstein's Comparator

Memory Predicts the Consequences of Action

Mental Nodes

Mirror Neurons

Simulation, Emulation, or Representation?

II. The Sense of Movement:A Sixth Sense?

Proprioception

The Vestibulary System: An Inertial Center?

The Functions of the Vestibular System

Seeing Movement

III. Building Coherence

How Vision Detects Movement

Visual Movement and Vestibular Receptors

Am I in my Bed or Hanging from the Ceiling?

The Coherence between Seeing and Hearing

The Problem of the Coherence and Unity of Perception

Autism: The Disintegration of Coherence?

IV. Frames of Reference

Personal Space and Extrapersonal Space

Egocentric and Allocentric Frames of Reference

Natural Frames of Reference

Selecting Frames of Reference

V. A Memory for Predicting

Topographic Memory or Topokinetic Memory?

The Neural Basis of Spatial Memory: The Role of the Hippocampus

VI. Natural Movement

Pioneers

The Problem of Number of Degrees of Freedom

The Invention of the Eye

The Form of a Drawing Is Produced by the Law of Maximal Smoothness

VII. Synergies and Strategies

Vestibular Axon Branching and Gaze Stabilization

The Baby Fish that Wanted to Swim Flat on Its Stomach

The Neural Bases for Encoding Movement of the Arms

Coordination of Synergies

VIII. Capture

The Toad's Decision

The Art of Braking

What If Newton Had Wanted to Catch the Apple?

IX. The Look that Investigates the World

Gaze Orientation

"Go Where I'm Looking," not"Look Where I'm Going"

Eye-to-Eye Contact

Gaze and Emotion

The Neural Basis of Gaze-Orienting Reactions

X. Visual Exploration

The Brain Is a Fiery Steed

A Model of Perception-Action Relationships

Imagined Movement and Actual Movement

Dynamic Memory and Predictive Control of Movements

Was Piaget Right?

XI. Balance

A Physiology of Reaction

How to Make the University of Edinburgh Oscillate

Toward a Projective Physiology

XII. Adaptation

Adaptation and Substitution

The Rheumatologist and the Ophthalmologist

The Role of Activity in Compensating for and Preventing Disorientation

XIII. The Disoriented Brain: Illusions Are Solutions

Illusion: The Best Possible Hypothesis

Illusions Caused by Acceleration and Gravity

Illusions of Movement of the Limbs

Space and Motion Sickness

A Few Other Illusions

XIV. Architects Have Forgotten the Pleasure of Movement

Conclusion: Toward a Tolerant Perception

Notes

Works Cited

Credits

Index

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