Schizophrenics 'spot illusions'

[emad]

People with schizophrenia may be well attuned to spotting visual illusions, a study suggests.

Despite experiencing hallucinations as part of their condition, schizophrenic volunteers to a study were better able to spot "real" visions than others.

The Current Biology work could help shed light on the brain mechanisms involved in schizophrenia, the University College London authors say.

It might be down to a difficulty dealing with context, they believe.

For example, people with schizophrenia tend to take less account of the circumstances and conditions that surround a situation or event that often help us to interpret it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4360572.stm

[soothsayer]

1. Ironic that they see reality better than the rest of us, and yet....

Very interesting.

[bloom]

2. that is interesting... eom

[Jamastiene]

3. I'm a paranoid/avoidant who can see

the surface of my eyes sometimes. At least I think it's the surface of my eyes that I see. Maybe I'm not the only one who can see that.

On a sunny day, if I am laying on the bed just sort of looking at the wall, but not really focusing, I can see what looks like lots of little shadows crawling all over my eyes.

Okay, yes, I am certifiably crazy, but I HAVE heard that there are little bugs crawling all over our eyes.

Okay, I digress. I'm crazy. I see things.

[psychopomp]

6. What you see, everybody can see... it's stuff in your eye

...literally. The goo inside of your eyeball is not completely free of floating specs of debris. When that comes between the image being cast on the retina and your lenses you can see the shadows floating before you.

It's all part of being human.

[bananas]

7. They're called "floaters"

Everybody can see them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floaters
More cool stuff you can see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entoptic_phenomenon

[IndyOp]

4. Wow - That is interesting -

I will use it next semester in Intro Psych.

One of the hardest units to drag myself through is Sensation & Perception -- not that it can't be interesting, just that some of it is pretty dry and the only 'application' I've refered to in past is understand MC Escher's drawings. Sad, but true.

:kick:

[Celebration]

5. You aren't really paranoid if they are truly after you!!

Anecdotal evidence--my friend whose daughter has schizophrenia tells me that every time her daughter has a paranoid thought it has some basis in fact. Probably promotes better mental health to be a little clueless. Evidence-- are conspiracy theorists paranoid or are they exceptionally perceptive??? Think about it.

[Delphinus]

8. I tend to think outside of the box,

so I prefer to think of myself as perceptive. Not exceptionally perceptive, but perceptive.