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 neurocognitive 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.