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.)

Aphasias is a complex phenomenon and a type of speech disorder consisting of a defect or loss of the power of expression by speech, writing, or signs of comprehension of spoken or written language, due to disease or injury of the brain centers, some examples are brain tumor, a disease such as Alzheimer's, infections, traumatic brain injury, or when the brain is deprived of oxygen such as during a stroke (Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 2009).

A person's brain can manifests aphasia in different ways and treatment is usually really long and difficult, struggling to communicate for months or even years. Aphasia does not include speech impediments caused by loss of muscle control (Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 2009).

A person suffering from the challenges of aphasia have had damage to the left hemisphere of the brain in either the temporal or frontal area where language is processed. They may have problems speaking, reading and writing, recognizing the names of objects, or understanding what other people have said. Sometimes aphasia can be treated but sometimes it is permanent. There are also eighteen varieties of aphasia; however the two our text mentions that I will touch on are Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia.

Broca's area is found in the frontal lobe on the left side of the brain. Individuals with this type of aphasia have trouble speaking, normally use nouns and verbs, but they can comprehend what another person is saying relatively well in most cases. It's also known as non-fluent or expressive aphasia (National Aphasia Association, n.d.). They struggle to make simple conversation and may be limited in writing or reading depending on severity.

Similar, Wernicke's aphasia is characterized by damage to the temporal lobe, speech is fluent but in all attempts to be coherent they're grammatically incorrect and incoherent making it very difficult for the listener to understand what the person with Wernicke's aphasia is trying to communicate.

An individual with Wernicke's aphasia is unaware of how they're speaking lacks meaning and that they can't be understood. Even though many experience problems they are able to maintain some communications even if some things are misinterpreted.
I personally have never lived with this condition however both my mother and my uncle have brain tumors and my uncle had suffered (recently passed away) for several years with aphasia after his stroke.

My mother sometimes has memory issues but her brain tumor is on the right side of her brain so luckily she doesn't have communication problems. I can only imagine the stress that it may cause. We go about our lives communicating in different ways out of necessity and to suffer from aphasia means you have trouble with speaking, reading, writing, and decoding word meanings.

These ways of communication are required in every aspect of our lives. That means it would be difficult to communicate and understand friends, loved ones, teachers, employees, people we interact with at stores, businesses, or in emergency type situations. Life would be a major struggle if all these concepts of communication were disabled. And that's just putting it mildly. Folks who suffer from aphasia are also struggling with other issues such as depression or/and both health problems because they can't communicate their needs or pain.