Summary

Ramachandran devotes Chapter 2 to an in-depth look at perception, the process through which the brain converts sensory information into sensations. He specifically focuses on the evolution and mechanisms of visual perception. Light is picked up by the eyes, but vision mostly occurs in the brain. All visual tasks require specialized brain regions. When one of these regions is damaged, it can result in specific deficits in the vision process, rather than a total loss of sight. For example, an older British man named John suffered a stroke, which damaged only that part of his brain that assigns meaning to objects. He could still see carrots, but he could not name them as such. He also lost the ability to recognize faces. He could see a face, but not know that it was his wife, or even his own reflection.

In visual perception, the...