Sensation and Perception

As always, learning outcomes are highly problematic as we cannot know in advance what we will learn and predefining outcomes is destructive to the purpose of education. The major aim of this course is to develop a deep understanding of what it means to perceive. Those of you that have already completed PL3232 will likely be familiar with the notion that seeing colour, for example, is dependent on specific wavelengths exciting cones in the fovea and then exciting striate cortex, at the back of the brain, via the lateral geniculate nucleus. Those physical components are necessary for colour vision but the deeper issue focuses on whether those physical components can explain colour vision. Stating that the sensation of red is the sensation of short wavelengths exciting nervous tissue in the brain somehow seems to miss the red experience. Thus, this course will focus on what is biologically necessary for sensation while also attending to what it means to be sensory creatures.