Nonveridical Perception

Susana Martinez-Conde & Stephen L. Macknik

A person's entire life experience—everyone, everything, every experience he or she has ever known—exists to that person only as a function of his or her brain's activity. As such, it does not necessarily reproduce the physical reality of the world with high fidelity. Nonveridical perception is the sensory or cognitive discrepancy between the subjective perception and the physical world. Of course, many experiences in daily life reflect the physical stimuli that fall into one's eyes, ears, skin, nose, and tongue. Otherwise, action or navigation in the physical world would be impossible. But the same neural machinery that interprets veridical sensory inputs is also responsible for one's dreams, imaginings, and failings of memory. Thus, the real and the illusory or misperceived have the same physical basis in a person's brain. Misperceptions (that is, perceptions that do not match the physical or veridical world) can arise from both normal and pathological processes. ...

Users without subscription are not able to see the full content on this title. Please, subscribe or login to access all content on this website.