Course Text:

Goldstein, E. B. (2017). Sensation and Perception. 10th edition. California: Cengage.

Original Question:

By now you've probably noticed in your assigned readings that the study of sensation and perception focuses on things you may have experienced but never given any thought to--for example, the "Purkinje shift". We don't think much about these phenomena because our world is full of them, and if we had to be conscious of every sensation and its accompanying perception that we ever experienced our brains would have little time for anything else (!) but research scientists have studied them in detail.

This leaves us with the question--do these interesting and sometimes odd things matter? The answer is yes, but why and how varies depending on the particular phenomenon. Because there are real-life phenomena associated with everything discussed in our readings and dialoguing about them can bring theory and fact to life, for the remainder of our forum assignments we will be doing the following:

In the initial forum post, please describe how one of the phenomena mentioned in the readings explains an everyday event that you have experienced or observed and then suggest how this phenomenon might have serious consequences (so first its everyday occurrence and impact and then ways in which it can have serious impact).

For the purpose of this assignment, we will define "serious impact" as something that has negative consequences to health and safety of the self or others rather than something that is inconvenient or embarrassing. Not being able to distinguish colors under certain light may lead to getting home after a shopping trip only to find out an outfit isn't the color you thought it was, which can be inconvenient and/or embarrassing. Not being able to distinguish colors under certain war zone conditions can be safety and life threatening.

Please be specific, thorough and concrete. Adding onto the end of a post a statement or two that something could be a problem is not sufficient. Additionally, saying you don't know of any negative consequences isn't permitted. Doing so will void your forum assignment points. You will need to explain how the phenomenon specifically has a negative impact.

An example, described in Nicholas Wade's 2000 "The Natural History of Vision" is below (NOTE: Because this one has already been applied, you must select another). Unless discussing one of the more common disorders, like a lack of depth perception or hearing loss, please avoid "I think I have this" syndrome. This is something that medical students often fall prey to in the early years of medical school because they spend so much time studying human disorders, from the very common to the exceedingly rare.

Reply to the following response with 200 words minimum. (please make response as if having a conversation, respond directly to some of the statements in below post.)

Otosclerosis is uncommon and unique medical phenomenon of the hearing sense that is defined as a disease characterized by stiffness or hardening around the bones in the middle and inner ear and can also affect the otic capsule. Those bones are called the ossicles, and they form a kind of an immovable knit together, and don't transmit sound as well as when they were once flexible (Hain, 2012).

The disease causes the soft pores that grow around the osicle chain to become full of stiff mass and with the disease it prevents sound entering by changing the air pressure on the inner ear space. The air pressure on both sides of the ear drum should be equal for there to be adequate hearing. Ostosclerosis squashes the air pressure that causes hearing loss. This can be tested through measuring bone conduction thresholds to measure a patient's conductive hearing loss to determine severity and plan for possible treatment options.

The disease is typically inherited, so if you have a parent who has it you have a 50% chance of accquiring the gene. Still that doesn't mean you will have it, it just mean s you have a chance because you have it in your genetic makeup. Hearing loss begins sometime around ten to thirty years of age (Hain, 2012).

When Otosclerosis involves the small bones of the middle ear, a conductive type of loss is found. This loss can be corrected with a hearing aid or surgery. When Otosclerosis affects the inner ear/optic capsule, a sensory type of hearing loss occurs, and is not correctable by surgery. Often times, hearing aids are ineffective. If both areas are affected by Otosclerosis, there's a mix of issues with hearing loss (Hain, 2012).

The hearing loss is attributed to enzymes leaking from the bones in the inner and middle ear. Sensory hearing loss is caused by atrophy of the spiral ligament caused by involvement of lamellar bone at the inner surface of the cochlear capsule. Another cause is vascular, degeneration of the stria vascularis. In most early stages, treatment with fluoride may help. However, the sensory component of the disease may lead to complete deafness, but not as common.

In most cases, both ears will have the disease, but in only 10-15% of patients, hearing loss is usually one side only (Hain, 2012). Later on in age, usually in a person's thirties, hearing loss appears and will plateau out and rarely worsens. Physical symptoms that affect some patients but not all are dizziness, tinnitus (ringing in the ears), and suffer from throbbing ear pain. Some of these features of Ostosclerosis can be repaired with surgery to limit or reverse problems in the central auditory pathway (Hain, 2012).

People with the disease may have problems with communicating or hearing things in their environment around them that could impact their safety. For example, with loss of hearing you may not be able to hear a fire or tornado alarm going off. Walking into a hazard could be fatal if you couldn't hear someone shouting or honking a horn to warn you to get out of the way. There are often times we take for granted our ability to hear. Can you think of a time when you were faced with a dangerous situation that could have turned out differently if you hadn't had your hearing?

Research is still trying to figure out what causes the disease. They have found though, women are more likely to have Ostosclerosis than men.

There's a link possibly to hormones or presence of a viral influence. One hypothesis is that the disease requires a certain type of genetic combination with virus exposure to cause the mutation such as a measles infection (Hain, 2012). Patients with the disease are known to have a weaker immune response so this may be a clue that researchers are looking for as the link to understanding Ostosclerosis.

Reference

Hain, Timothy C. MD (2012) Otosclerosis. American Hearing Research Foundation.