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Perceptive excision: definition, causes and possible treatments

Perceptive excision: definition, causes and possible treatments

March 2, 2024

The human being constantly perceives the reality that surrounds him, obtaining information from the environment through the different senses to later integrate the various data and process them in different brain nuclei.

However, sometimes there are alterations that cause objects and stimuli are not perceived correctly. This is the case of perceptive excision .

Perceptual excision as alteration of perception

We understand perceptive excision that type of alteration of the perception in which the information referring to the stimuli is not perceived in an integrated manner. This may occur with information from different sensory modalities but in general the concept of perceptual excision tends to refer to the separation of perceptual elements captured by the same sense, the most common case being the disintegration of visual information.


It is important to keep in mind that the problem does not occur visually or in the sensory organs , these being fully functional. And although it is an alteration of perception, we are not facing an hallucination either: the perceived stimuli are always real. The problem in question is that although we capture the information correctly we are not able to integrate it, which generates two competing perceptions.

In this way, before the perceptive split, we see the stimulus disintegrated, separately appreciating aspects that we should see as a whole, such as the shape of the objects and their content, or separating color and form. We would not see a red apple, if not on one side the color red and on the other an apple.


Types of perceptive excision

There is no single type of perceptive excision . In general, we can consider that, in what refers to the type of excision that occurs in the same sensory modality and specifically in that of sight, there are two main types of perceptive excision: morpholysis and metachromia. In addition to this it is possible that there is a perceptive split between different senses.

1. Morpholysis

Morpholysis is the perceptive excision that is only at the level of form . We are unable to gather the information of the form of the objects of their content. It is possible for example that we see the face of someone separated from his body.

2. Metachromia

As for metachromes, they refer to those perceptual splits in which we perceive color and form separately . For example, we see them separately or the color exceeds the shape (as if we left the line when painting an object), or colors that do not correspond to the real ones.


3. Disintegration of information from different sensory modalities

It is usually the dissociation between sight and hearing, although other senses could also fall into this category. Thus, what we hear and what we see is perceived separately, as if it came from two different stimuli. For example, we are unable to relate the voice to the movement of the lips of the person in front of us. It could also happen with sight and touch, for example.

Causes

It is very frequent that morpholysis and metachromia appear in the context of a psychotic outbreak . Likewise, hyperstimulation typical of epilepsy can also generate phenomena of perceptive excision. It is not uncommon for it to appear before intoxications or consumption of substances such as psychodisleptics. Another context in which perceptive excision can appear is in the presence of brain injuries caused by traumatic brain injuries and strokes, or by the compression of some nerve pathways in cases, for example, brain tumors.

The most probable cause of this type of phenomenon is found in the malfunctioning of some of the relay nuclei or nerve pathways where the information of the different perceptual pathways is processed and integrated, both in the same sense as in the set of external information. This causes different elements of the same perception to be perceived separately.

Treatment

Perceptive excision is not a disorder per se, but a symptom. As such, its treatment will depend to a great extent on the type of alteration that generates it. For example, drugs that nullify the effect of the substances taken that cause the alteration, or neuroleptics that can decrease and stop the psychotic outbreak and reduce the possibility of new ones may be prescribed. In some cases it may be advisable to perform occupational therapy and rehabilitation that can help restore the normal functioning of nerve connections.

But nevertheless, what will always be advisable is to provide the patient with information about what is happening , since this type of alterations can suppose a great level of anguish and worry.

Bibliographic references:

Belloch, A .; Sandín, B. and Ramos, F. (2002). Manual of Psychopathology, Vol. I. McGraw-Hill. Madrid.


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