Perception, Cognition, and Action in Hyperspaces: Implications on Brain Plasticity, Learning, and Cognition

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Haluk Ogmen¹  Kazuhisa Shibata²  Arash Yazdanbakhsh³ 

[1] Laboratory of Perceptual and Cognitive Dynamics, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Ritchie School of Engineering & Computer Science, University of Denver, United States;Laboratory for Human Cognition and Learning, RIKEN Center for Brain Science;Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Computational Neuroscience and Vision Lab, Center for Systems Neuroscience, Boston University, United States

关键词: hypercube;    brain plasticity;    sensorimotor;    four-dimensional;    neural representations;    learning;    brain development;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03000

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

We live in a three-dimensional (3D) spatial world; however, our retinas receive a pair of 2D projections of the 3D environment. By using multiple cues, such as disparity, motion parallax, perspective, our brains can construct 3D representations of the world from the 2D projections on our retinas. These 3D representations underlie our 3D perceptions of the world and are mapped into our motor systems to generate accurate sensorimotor behaviors. Three-dimensional perceptual and sensorimotor capabilities emerge during development: the physiology of the growing baby changes hence necessitating an ongoing re-adaptation of the mapping between 3D sensory representations and the motor coordinates. This adaptation continues in adulthood and is quite general to successfully deal with joint-space changes (longer arms due to growth), skull and eye size changes (and still being able of accurate eye movements), etc. A fundamental question is whether our brains are inherently limited to 3D representations of the environment because we are living in a 3D world, or alternatively, our brains may have the inherent capability and plasticity of representing arbitrary dimensions; however, 3D representations emerge from the fact that our development and learning take place in a 3D world. Here, we review research related to inherent capabilities and limitations of brain plasticity in terms of its spatial representations and discuss whether with appropriate training, humans can build perceptual and sensorimotor representations of spatial 4D environments, and how the presence or lack of ability of a solid and direct 4D representation can reveal underlying neural representations of space.

【 授权许可】

CC BY