Beat: Motion Blindness

[EricW]

A terrible life beat that a small number of people have to live with is "motion blindness."

Motion blindness occurs when there is damage to the Middle Temporal area - the area which represents motion in our brain. This can be caused by stroke, or even brain damage.

Why is this such a beat? Well in this people, their "what" visual pathway associated with their fusiform gyrus which acts to identify/recognize objects is still intact. So basically, they can still see objects, and make out what's going on. However, their MT area is damaged so they perceive no motion. Think about their world as discontinuous snap shots with no flow.

It's a terrible, terrible, life beat for these people because they can't even judge the velocity of objects. Heck, they can't even see water being poured out of the tea cup anymore.

So when you go to bed at night, think of how lucky you are that you don't have this life beat.