Let me tell you about Oliver Sacks, the famous physician, professor and author of unusual neurological case studies.
We'll be looking at some of his fascinating research in future lessons, but for now, I just want to talk about Sacks himself.
Although he possesses a brilliant and inquisitive mind, Dr. Sacks cannot do a simple thing that your average toddler can.
He can't recognize his own face in the mirror. Sacks has a form of prosopagnosia, a neurological disorder that impairs a person's ability
to perceive or recognize faces, also known as face blindness. Last week we talked about how brain function is localized, and this is another peculiarly
excellent example of that. Sacks can recognize his coffee cup on the shelf, but he can't pick out his oldest
friend from a crowd, because the specific sliver of his brain responsible for facial recognition is malfunctioning.
There's nothing wrong with his vision. The sense is intact.
The problem is with his perception, at least when it comes to recognizing faces. Prosopagnosia is a good example of how sensing and perceiving are connected, but different.
Sensation is the bottom-up process by which our senses, like vision, hearing and smell, receive and relay outside stimuli.
