Understanding Perception: A Human and Animal Perspective

Perception is an important part of life because it allows us to experience the world around us. It helps us become aware of the stimulus around us and guides us on how to act based on a each unique situation. Perception mainly relies on touch, taste, hearing, smell, and eyesight. However besides relying on senses, perception also includes important cognitive proccesses such as facial recognition and familiar scents. Humans appreciate perception because it allows us to express our own unique viewpoint and it is what sets us apart from each other. But not only do humans use perception, animals do as well. Dogs are one of the most intelligent animals because they are able to pick up details from a human face to modulate their behavior. Cognitive

The different dogs included five border collies, one Golden Retriever, and one Labrador Retriever. Each of the seven dogs then had to complete three training sessions in order to learn how to stay still in an MRI scanner. The dogs were trained for a maximum of fifteen minutes and has periods of rest and play to keep them engaged. After the dogs had learned to stay still during the MRI scan they were given pictures of human faces and everyday objects to looks at. The images were shown for 7 seconds and the picture order was randomized. By conducting this experiment researchers were able to see the different areas of a dog’s brain that were affected by perception through the use of an fMRI. The fMRI stands for functional magnetic resonance imaging and it is able to sense which areas of the brain are activated by different cognitive functions or physical sensations. The researchers conducted about five runs for each dog exposing them to the pictures of faces and everyday objects. The researchers found that there was a dramatic increase in brain activity in pictures of human faces compared to everyday

Patients with prosopagnosia have the inability to recognize the faces of familiar people in their life. It is quite tragic because they can’t quickly recognize loved ones such as family and friends. This is mainly caused by damage in the left upper quadrant which suggests a lesion on the right cerebral area. The impairment of the right cerebral area is rather devastating because the right side of the brain is commonly used for facial proccessing. Within the right hemisphere of the brain the fusiform gyrus and the lingual gyrus were negatively affected. The function of the fusiform gyrus is mainly used for facial recognition. In the article “What is Face Blindness?” by Julie Leibach, she observes a woman who has suffered from prosopagnosia since she was five. Leibach discovers that “[Lisa tried] to keep track of the brothers, she would usually memorize what color shirt each was wearing.” The inability to use the fusiform gyrus in perception will not allow a person to recall or remember details of another person’s face. Without the fusiform gyrus the only way prosopagnosia patients could recognize a person is through their hair, voice, or even clothes. The lingual gyrus also affects a prosopagnosia patient’s brain. The main function of the lingual gyrus is to proccess vision. It also plays a major role in proccessing very complex details of