Green Anemone in a Tidepool - Olympic National Park Ruby Beach
Green Anemone in a Tidepool - Olympic National Park Ruby Beach
From "Gathering Moss" by by Robin Wall Kimmerer (writing about finding starfish in a tidepool. I like this passage, but I linked it with an anemone. BTW, this is a great book.)
The sensation of sudden visual awareness is produced in part by the formation of a "search image" in the brain. In a complex visual landscape, the brain initially registers all the incoming data, without critical evaluation. Five orange arms in a starlike pattern, smooth black rock, light and shadow. All this is input, but the brain does not immeadiately intepet the data or convey the meaning to the conscious mind. Not until the pattern is repeated, with feedback from the conscious mind, do we know what we are seeing. It is in this way that animals become skilled collectors of their prey, by differentiating complex visual patterns into into the particular configurations that mean food. .... The neural pathways have to be trained by experience to process what is being seen. The synapses fire and stars come out. The unseen is suddenly plain.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Anthozoa
Subclass: Hexacorallia
Order: Actiniaria
DSCN1609
Green Anemone in a Tidepool - Olympic National Park Ruby Beach
Green Anemone in a Tidepool - Olympic National Park Ruby Beach
From "Gathering Moss" by by Robin Wall Kimmerer (writing about finding starfish in a tidepool. I like this passage, but I linked it with an anemone. BTW, this is a great book.)
The sensation of sudden visual awareness is produced in part by the formation of a "search image" in the brain. In a complex visual landscape, the brain initially registers all the incoming data, without critical evaluation. Five orange arms in a starlike pattern, smooth black rock, light and shadow. All this is input, but the brain does not immeadiately intepet the data or convey the meaning to the conscious mind. Not until the pattern is repeated, with feedback from the conscious mind, do we know what we are seeing. It is in this way that animals become skilled collectors of their prey, by differentiating complex visual patterns into into the particular configurations that mean food. .... The neural pathways have to be trained by experience to process what is being seen. The synapses fire and stars come out. The unseen is suddenly plain.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Anthozoa
Subclass: Hexacorallia
Order: Actiniaria
DSCN1609