IUBio

Cross - Wired Eyes

Kalman Rubinson kr4 at nyu.edu
Tue May 15 09:52:31 EST 2001


Long before Braitenberg, this approach was developed by G.E.Coghill in
"Anatomy and the Problem of Behavior" (1929) using the anatomical and
behavioral development of the Axolotl for the study.

Kal


On Tue, 15 May 2001 10:40:16 +0200, "Filip van den Bergh"
<F.S.vandenBergh at students.fss.uu.nl> wrote:

>Karl Self <karl.self at gmx.net> wrote in message
>news:9dkgbm$j0icu$3 at ID-34153.news.dfncis.de...
>> -  why is this so?
>
>Well, I don't think anybody knows for sure, but there are some nice
>hypotheses on that question. One explanation I've heard more than once (e.g.
>Braitenberg: Vehicles) is that it's a matter of very early evolution.
>Imagine a very simple organism that has only two sensory units and two motor
>units. Now suppose those sensory units are wired to the motor units (like in
>my very bad figure A, at the bottom of this post). That would mean that if
>the sensors sensed something, the organism would move away from whatever the
>sensory unit noticed. If the sensory units would be crossed (very bad figure
>B), then the organism would move towards the distal source of excitation. I
>suppose you'd say there is as much reason to move away from stuff (e.g.
>predators or too much heat) as there is to move towards other stuff (food,
>warmth). I think that's true, but I'd start with getting some food for my
>very simple organism. Later, different (in this case uncrossed sensors)
>could detect danger and avoid it.
>It's but a theory (Braitenberg would call it an experiment in synthetic
>psychology), but a very likeable one at that.
>
>Filip van den Bergh
>
>Badly drawn figures (best viewed in courier font)
>S = sensory unit
>M = motor unit
>| = straight connection
>X = crossed connection
>
>Figure A
>
>S1   S2
>|     |
>M1   M2
>
>
>Figure B
>
>S1   S2
>   X
>M1   M2
>
>




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