4 ms·

Thanks for this super interesting comment. The complexity of life never ceases to boggle the mind.

• sam_goody 5y ago
  It is my understanding that what really happens is far more impressive. 1. When the sound is coming from, say, the back left, the difference between the ears is far less than the width of the head. 2. It is not that the brain hears on one side "later", it is that the brain is constantly hearing two different things, what is registered on the right and what is on the left, simultaneously. Since there are often sounds coming from both directions at once, there is no easy way to match the sounds up. Instead the subconscious has to hold each of the incoming sounds for some fractions of a second, and then combine the different sounds (with smell, etc) while matching up the different parts, using the differences to account for direction. Since this per-force takes time, the subconscious meanwhile sends a "image" to the consciousness with the assumed incoming data based on whatever had happened before [not on what is happening now], while processing the current data to predict what image will be sent to the consciousness during the next incoming round. This means we perceive a world created by the subconscious's guess of what should be happening now, based on past input. And the current input is held for processing. And STILL, the mouse is able to avoid the owl!
  • labawi 5y ago
    It should be noted that typical human conscious notion of 'now' is pretty much a figment of imagination, a strut for reasoning that falls apart when you start looking with sub-second precision. There is speculation, but also a lot of post-process coalescing that mostly hides/reconciles processing delays and time skew of sensory and non-sensory inputs.