Pathology of perception

Lali laliashvili
 Sense organs

There are five senses:

• sight
• hearing
• taste
• smell
• Touch

There are organs connected with these sense that take in

information that is sent to the brain so that the body can act
on it.
 Sense organs
Sight :
The eye is the organ of the sense of sight.
Eyes detect light
 Sense organs
Hearing
The ear is the organ concerned with hearing.
 Sense organs
Taste:
Tongue is a muscular organ in the mouth. The
tongue is vital in tasting and chewing food
and in speech.
 Sense organs
Smell:
Nose:The nose, along with the mouth, lets air
in and out of the body. It also helops us
distinguish different smells in that air.
 Sense organs
Touch:
Skin: The skin permits the sensations of touch, heat,
and cold.
 Illusion
• An illusion is a distortion of the senses,
revealing how the brain normally organizes
and interprets sensory stimulation. Though
illusions distort reality, they are generally
shared by most people. Illusions may occur
with any of the human senses
• visual illusions (optical illusions), are the most
well-known and understood. The emphasis on
visual illusions occurs because vision often
dominates the other senses. Some illusions
are based on general assumptions the brain
makes during perception.
• The term illusion refers to a specific form of
sensory distortion. Unlike a hallucination,
which is a distortion in the absence of a
stimulus, an illusion describes a
misinterpretation of a true sensation. For
example, hearing voices of the environment
would be a hallucination, whereas hearing
voices in the sound of running water (or other
auditory source) would be an illusion.
 Optical illusion

• An optical illusion is characterized by

visually perceived images that are deceptive or
misleading. Therefore, the information gathered by
the eye is processed by the brain to give, on the face
of it, a percept that does not tally with a physical
measurement of the stimulus source. A conventional
assumption is that there are physiological illusions that
occur naturally and cognitive illusions that can be
demonstrated by specific visual tricks that say
something more basic about how human perceptual
systems work.
 Auditory illusion

• An auditory illusion is an illusion of hearing,

the sound equivalent of an optical illusion: the
listener hears either sounds which are not
present in the stimulus, or "impossible"
sounds. In short, audio illusions highlight areas
where the human ear and brain, as organic,
makeshift tools, differ from perfect audio
receptors (for better or for worse).
 Tactile illusion

• Examples of tactile illusions include

phantom limb, the thermal grill illusion, and a
curious illusion that occurs when the crossed
index and middle fingers are run along the bridge
of the nose with one finger on each side,
resulting in the perception of two separate noses.
Tactile illusions can also be elicited through
haptic technology. These "illusory" tactile objects
can be used to create "virtual objects".
 temporal illusion
• A temporal illusion is a distortion in the
perception of time, which occurs when the
time interval between two or more events is
very narrow (typically less than a second). In
such cases, a person may momentarily
perceive time as slowing down, stopping,
speeding up, or running backwards.
 Other senses

• Illusions can occur with the other senses including

those involved in food perception. Here both
sound and touch have been shown to modulate the
perceived staleness and crispness of food products.
It was also discovered that even if some portion of
the taste receptor on the tongue became damaged
that illusory taste could be produced by tactile
stimulation. Evidence of olfactory (smell) illusions
occurred when positive or negative verbal labels
were given prior to olfactory stimulation.
 Hallucination
• The word "hallucination" itself was introduced
into the English language by the 17th century
physician Sir Thomas Browne in 1646 from the
derivation of the Latin word alucinari meaning
to wander in the mind.
• Hallucinations may be manifested in a variety
of forms. Various forms of hallucinations affect
different senses, sometimes occurring
simultaneously
• A hallucination is a perception in the absence of
external stimulus that has qualities of real
perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial,
and are perceived to be located in external
objective space. They are distinguishable from
these related phenomena: dreaming, which does
not involve wakefulness; illusion, which involves
distorted or misinterpreted real perception; and
pseudohallucination, which does not mimic real
perception, but is not under voluntary control.
• Hallucinations can occur in any sensory
modality—visual, auditory, olfactory,
gustatory, tactile, proprioceptive,
equilibrioceptive, nociceptive, thermoceptive
and chronoceptive.
 Visual hallucination
• A visual hallucination is "the perception of an
external visual stimulus where none
exists". Alternatively, a visual illusion is a
distortion of a real external stimulus. Visual
hallucinations are separated into simple and
complex. Simple visual hallucinations are lights,
colors, geometric shapes, and indiscrete objects.
Complex visual hallucinations are clear, lifelike
images or scenes such as people, animals,
objects, etc.
 Auditory hallucinations
• Auditory hallucinations are the perception of
sound without outside stimulus. Auditory
hallucinations are the most common type of
hallucination. Auditory hallucinations can be
divided into two categories: elementary and
complex. Elementary hallucinations are the
perception of sounds such as hissing,
whistling, an extended tone, and more.
 Auditory hallucinations
• Complex hallucinations are those of voices,
music, or other sounds that may or may not be
clear, may be familiar or completely unfamiliar,
and friendly or aggressive, among other
possibilities. A hallucination of a single individual
person of one or more talking voices are
particularly associated with psychotic disorders
such as schizophrenia, and hold special
significance in diagnosing these conditions.
 Auditory hallucinations
• Another typical disorder where auditory hallucinations
are very common is dissociative identity disorder. In
schizophrenia voices are normally perceived coming
from outside the person but in dissociative disorders
they are perceived as originating from within the
person, commenting in their head not behind their
back. Differential diagnosis between schizophrenia
and dissociative disorders is challenging due to many
overlapping symptoms especially scheinedrian
first rank symptoms such as hallucinations.
 Auditory hallucinations
During auditory hallucinations, a person may
hear noise, music, voices. Sounds can be sharp
and slurred and take the form of words, phrases
and sentences. They may address the patient
face-to-face - second-person hallucinations, or
they may talk to each other and refer to the
patient - third-person hallucinations.
 Command hallucinations
• Command hallucinations are hallucinations in
the form of commands; they can be auditory
or inside of the person's mind and/or
consciousness. The contents of the
hallucinations can range from the innocuous
to commands to cause harm to the self or
others. Command hallucinations are
sometimes referred to as Instructions by
patients.
 Olfactory hallucination

• Phantosmia is the phenomenon of smelling

odors that are not really present. The most
common odors are unpleasant smells such as
rotting flesh, vomit, urine, feces, smoke, or
others. The damage can be caused by
viral infection, brain tumor, trauma, surgery, and
to toxins or drugs. Phantosmia can also be
induced by epilepsy affecting the olfactory cortex
and is also thought to possibly have psychiatric
origins.
 Tactile hallucinations
• Tactile hallucinations are the illusion of tactile
sensory input, simulating various types of pressure
to the skin or other organs. One subtype of tactile
hallucination, formication, is the sensation of
insects crawling underneath the skin and is
frequently associated with prolonged cocaine
use. However, formication may also be the result
of normal hormonal changes such as menopause,
or disorders such as peripheral neuropathy, high
fevers, Lyme disease, skin cancer, and more.
 Gustatory hallucination
• This type of hallucination is the perception of
taste without a stimulus. These hallucinations,
which are typically strange or unpleasant, are
relatively common among individuals who
have certain types of focal epilepsy, especially
temporal lobe epilepsy. The regions of the
brain responsible for gustatory hallucination
 Hypnagogic hallucination
• These hallucinations occur just before falling
asleep, and affect a high proportion of the
population: in one survey 37% of the
respondents experienced them twice a
week. The hallucinations can last from
seconds to minutes; all the while, the subject
usually remains aware of the true nature of
the images.
 Treatments

• There are few treatments for many types of hallucinations. However, for
those hallucinations caused by mental disease, a psychologist or
psychiatrist should be alerted, and treatment will be based on the
observations of those doctors. Antipsychotic and atypical antipsychotic
medication may also be utilized to treat the illness if the symptoms are
severe and cause significant distress. For other causes of hallucinations
there is no factual evidence to support any one treatment is scientifically
tested and proven. However, abstaining from hallucinogenic drugs,
managing stress levels, living healthily, and getting plenty of sleep can help
reduce the prevalence of hallucinations. In all cases of hallucinations,
medical attention should be sought out and informed of one's specific
symptoms.