Body Atlas

Building Reality · Brain

How does the brain tell sight from sound?

Light, sound and touch all become the same kind of signal.

The simple answer

Your brain has never seen light or heard a sound. It sits in complete darkness and silence inside your skull, and everything reaching it arrives as the same thing: electrical spikes travelling along nerves.

Go deeper

There's more: light, sound and touch all become the same kind of signal. The full explanation — and the interactive version you can tap and quiz yourself on — lives in the app.

Explore this concept in Body Atlas →

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