Understanding the Secrets of Human Perception

Course Overview

Discover the secret life of your senses through an intriguing 24-lecture course exploring the frontiers of human perception.

Course No. 1674

Your senses don’t just inform you – they define your entire experience of reality. This course reveals:

• How your brain processes sensory information in milliseconds
• Cutting-edge neuroscience discoveries about perception
• The interconnected nature of your five senses
• Simple experiments to test your own perception

Professor Vishton combines decades of research with engaging demonstrations to transform how you understand sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.

Key Topics Covered:

• Neural basis of sensory processing
• Depth perception and color vision
• Pain perception systems
• Infant sensory development
• Sensory illusions and synesthesia
• Technological sensory enhancements

Video Lectures

01: Your Amazing, Intelligent Senses (32 min)

Discover how your senses make “educated guesses” to construct reality through eye-opening demonstrations.

02: The Physiological Hardware of Your Senses (30 min)

Learn how neurons translate sensory energy into electrical signals your brain interprets.

03: Neuroimaging-The Sensory Brain at Work (31 min)

Explore how fMRI reveals specialized brain regions for face recognition and perception.

04: Brain Modules-Subcomponents of the Senses (30 min)

Understand how independent sensory modules combine to create unified experiences.

05: Perceiving a World in Motion (31 min)

Examine how your brain processes movement to locate objects and interpret actions.

06: Seeing Distance and Depth (32 min)

Investigate visual cues like convergence and motion parallax that create 3D perception.

07: Seeing Color and Light (33 min)

Compare trichromatic retina processing vs. opponent process color interpretation.

08: Your World of Taste and Olfaction (28 min)

Discover how smell triggers memories and interacts with taste perception.

09: Hearing the World around You (30 min)

Learn the physics of sound and how your brain localizes audio sources.

10: Speech and Language Perception (32 min)

Explore how you segment continuous speech into meaningful words and phrases.

11: Touch-Temperature, Vibration, and Pressure (34 min)

Understand the skin’s complex receptor systems that ground your other senses.

12: Pain-How It Works for You (28 min)

Examine pain’s protective systems and how empathy activates pain networks.

13: Perception in Action (31 min)

See how your movements actively shape what you perceive moment-to-moment.

14: Attention and Perception (29 min)

Learn how attention acts as a “spotlight” and “glue” for sensory input.

15: Kinesthetic Perception (28 min)

Discover your often-overlooked sense of body position and movement.

16: Seeing, Remembering, Inferring Infants (29 min)

Track how babies develop visual perception and object understanding.

17: How Infants Sense and Act On Their World (31 min)

Explore connections between infant sensory development and motor skills.

18: Illusions and Magic (30 min)

Use visual tricks like the Kanizsa triangle to reveal perception’s shortcuts.

19: Perceiving Emotion in Others and Ourselves (33 min)

Examine how emotions alter time perception and sensory sensitivity.

20: Sensing the Thoughts of Others-ESP (34 min)

Separate paranormal myths from real perceptual mind-reading abilities.

21: Opponent Process for Perception and Life (31 min)

Understand fundamental neural balancing acts that maintain perception.

22: Synesthesia-Tasting Color and Seeing Sound (29 min)

Explore blended senses that reveal normal perceptual organization.

23: How Your Sensory Systems Learn (30 min)

Discover how experts develop specialized perception through training.

24: Fixing, Replacing, and Enhancing the Senses (34 min)

Consider cochlear implants and other technologies that restore or expand perception.