Hearing and Seeing: Models for Thought

Science is largely driven by curiosity and the desire to understand our place in the world. Neuroscience, focused on understanding how nervous systems work, is no exception. Diverse tools and methods are used to explore topics such as sensory perception, the control of movement, and even thinking.

Sensory perception has long fascinated scientists and philosophers. The ancient Greeks, for example, were interested in understanding how vision worked. They theorized that the eyes emitted an energy that bounced off objects to form an image. That theory is inconsistent with current scientific knowledge, but was not unreasonable at the time it was first proposed. It is important to understand that models are usually incomplete and sometimes completely wrong. A representation by 17th century philosopher Rene Descartes of how vision works, used to introduce this exhibit, is overly simplistic and wrong in many details known today. Please explore this exhibit to model your own understanding of how this nervous system works.

This exhibit documents a small sample of the various ways that sensory perception and brain function has been modeled. A model, whether actually built or only present in the mind of the researcher, is an important tool to understand and communicate how a complex system works. It is used to represent known facts, to test theories, and to generate new hypotheses. Models have been essential tools in the development of neuroscience, in part because the human nervous system is very complex, composed of millions of cells called neurons, communicating via billions of connections called synapses.