Psychology for Everyone

How it works? (Chapter 19)

From the book – Chapter 19: How Five Senses Actually Work

How it works

  • Light enters the eye through the cornea and pupil.

  • The lens focuses light onto the retina at the back of the eye.

  • Photoreceptors activate: rods detect light and dark and work in low light; cones detect colour (red, green, blue) and work in bright light.

  • Retinal cells convert light to electrical signals.

  • The optic nerve carries signals to the brain.

  • Visual cortex (occipital lobe) processes the information into images.

Key structures: cornea, pupil, lens, retina, optic nerve; occipital lobe.

Read the full chapter – Chapter 19: How Five Senses Actually Work

Stories from real life

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  • The Dark Months in Helsinki – Aino Virtanen was twenty-three when she moved from Chennai to Helsinki for her master's degree. September was beautiful. By November the sun rose late and set…
  • Mihir and the Scratchy Shirt – Mihir, seven, cried every morning about his school uniform. 'It scratches! The tag is stabbing me!' His parents in Ahmedabad thought he was making excuses to…
  • Leela, Age 41 – Two years after surviving a terrifying kitchen fire, forty-one-year-old Leela realised something strange was happening to her nervous system. Whenever she encountered the smell of a…

Shloks

  • Bhagavad Gita 15.9 – Presiding over ear, eye, touch, taste and smell, and over the mind, the person enjoys the objects.

More on this topic: The brain, hormones and body chemistry behind your moods

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