Schwarzlose said territory in our brain is much like Manhattan real estate. It's both finite and expensive.
"Brains evolve and develop to make the most of that modest terrain. Your brain maps are distorted to save energy and space. And these distortions, in turn, distort how you perceive your world," she said.
Consider your sense of sight for a second. You can see far more detail at your center of gaze, or where you are looking at any given moment, than out of the corner of your eye.
"Ideally, you would be able to see things equally well out of the corner of your eye as you do at your center of gaze. But you need more neurons, and more connections between those neurons, to represent fine details," Schwarzlose said.
"In order to see equally well in your visual periphery as you do at your center of gaze, the visual maps in your brain would have to be thirteen times larger. If this change sounds innocuous, think again. It would make your visual brain maps alone too large to fit inside your skull. And that would leave no room for the brain maps you rely upon to hear, feel, and move."
To avoid such outcomes, brain maps devote most of their estate to representing detailed information from "sweet spots" for perception, at the expense of basically everything else.
"Oddly enough, your ability to perceive crucially depends on all that you don't perceive. Thanks to our limited senses and distorted brain maps, you can experience and interact with your world... and do it all with a brain that's smaller than a breadbox."
So maybe it's not a big deal that we don't get some of these signs after all?
