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aggasalk t1_iwwiw29 wrote

We do not really know, most of the answers you're getting are very improvised..

Here's something we do know: The chameleon visual system is a bit unusual in that the optic nerves do not obviously lead to common targets in the chameleon brain. (detailed ref on this: https://www.karger.com/Article/PDF/113633)

In most animals where there is some amount of binocular overlap between the two eyes - in humans for example this overlap is huge (the two eyes' views mostly overlap). If you look at where the neural pathways from the eyes lead in the brain, they quickly (after just a couple of synapses) converge on common targets, meaning that neurons in corresponding retinal positions lead to the same neurons in the brain.

This is the fundamental reason why what we see with our two eyes feels so integrated: it is more-or-less the same neurons in the brain handling inputs from both. It's not that the brain "does something" to integrate the inputs - it's simply that the inputs are largely handled by the same neural mechanisms. In fact, you don't even have conscious access to individual-eyes views (if I poke a neuron in one of your eyes, you'll see a flash - but you'll have zero idea which eye it was in).

For the chameleon this isn't obviously true. Outputs from its two eyes are segregated well into its brain: one optic nerve goes to one nucleus on one side of the brain, the other optic nerve goes to the other side (our optic nerves split apart after they leave the eye, and merge into two "optic tracts" leading into the brain, each representing the same side of the visual field, half of each tract contributed by each eye).

It's almost certainly true that if you follow the chameleon's visual pathways far enough, deep enough, they'll meet eventually, but just reading about the basic neuroanatomy, I'd guess that the chameleon's visual experience is of two largely-segregated eye-views, which sometimes include common content, which the chameleon "knows" (to whatever extent you can say a chameleon "knows" things) are the same, thanks to the fact it does have some neural convergence of those inputs, somewhere deep in its little lizard brain.

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VivendusMoriendumEst OP t1_ixknugu wrote

Ok this is the sort of comment I love reddit for, especially askscience!

It's very much in line with what I've gathered myself but your insights on the actual neuroanatomy is so cool!

Dunno what your field is, but I have aphantasia (inability to form, imagine, recall, etc) visuals , in fact for me I have no mental simulation or recall of any sense but audio, which I have an apparently extraordinary faculty with, to recall or improvise very detailed and complex multi instrument music for example.

Very interested in what's atypical about my brain, this is one part. Finally seeing some research into aphantasia (most recently read an article classifying it as a memory disorder, though it seems I'm extremely rare in having such abilities with audio while no other sense in my mind.

Any ideas?

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