Top-down Approach to the Investigation of the Neural Basis of Geometric-optical Illusions: Understanding the Brain as a Theoretical Entity

Abstract

: Geometric-optical illusions have been the subjects of research interest in a number of disciplines in science. Moreover, investigation of the patients’ reactions to illusory configurations has been somewhat instrumental in the understanding of impaired neuro-cognitive processes underlying some of the neurological and/or psychiatric disorders. Recently, neuroscientists have made some progress in understanding the neural underpinning of the geometric-optical illusions. However, a closer collaboration between psychology and neuroscience may lead to a better understanding of not only the neural basis of the illusions but the function of the brain in general. The purpose of the present analysis is to outline a sound epistemological ground for such a relationship and to demonstrate how psychological theories may potentially play a guiding role in the context of scientific discoveries in the neuroscience of illusory phenomena. In order to do so, two concepts of the “many-one” relationship between the mental and the neural states and “context-sensitivity” will be described with regard to the possible relationships between perception and brain in the context of research on illusions. In addition, the implications of the top-down strategy for research in Psychiatry will be explained and the strategy will be discussed as a path towards the unification of scientific explanations.