If there is a single observation that seem to remain a popular feature of the change associated with growth and development it would probably have to do something with popular belief. It never cease to amaze me how often popular belief contain some of the most recent scientific discoveries as part and parcel of allegory, myth and mysticism, or how wrong popular belief can sometimes be. Take for instance our recently discovered knowledge with regard to awareness.
Over the past few years we have discovered some amazing new facts about how our minds synthesize reality from the sensory information that it receives from the brain. I have previously written various articles that focus on how sensory information is utilised to establish patterns, and how the brain then switches to auto-pilot. This allows the brain to free a substantial amount of processing power, with sensory input being limited to the detection of unexpected events.
In a report on Auditory illusion: How our brains can fill in the gaps to create continuous sound, Science Daily discusses research that propose our auditory sensory system have a similar ability that allow us to reconstruct fragmented sounds in to a coherent stream of information, all in aid of achieving a representation of reality that make sense. According to Science daily: "It is relatively common for listeners to 'hear' sounds that are not really there. In fact, it is the brain's ability to reconstruct fragmented sounds that allows us to successfully carry on a conversation in a noisy room."
Not only does it confirm something that we have observed with visual sensory information, but the research go further to help explain what happens in the brain that allows us to perceive a physically interrupted sound as being continuous. The research, published by Cell Press in the November 25 issue of Neuron provides fascinating insight into the constructive nature of human hearing, and could provide us with clues as to how our visual sense is translated to awareness.
It would seem that we are slowly but surely starting to make sense of our senses, and with that we are starting to understand how we make sense of the world around us.
