There are different forms of sign language based on
culture, but one of the most popular is the American Sign Language, also known
as ASL. ASL is expressed by
movements of the hands and face. It is the primary language of many North
Americans who are deaf and hard of hearing and is used by some hearing people
as well. People are still unsure of how this type of sign language
started, but there have been some theories that it originated over two hundred
years ago. There is no real evidence to back up this theory.
When people use ASL,
certain punctuation is expressed not only with the hands, but with the facial
expressions as well. When some one is asking a question in sign language, they
often raise an eye brow to imply it is a question. It is very interesting to
see that facial expressions can make a huge difference when using sign
language.
Studies have shown that
many parents should consider learning sign language due to the fact that
children will be able to speak through sign language before they are actually
capable of using words. Their hand coordination develops before their use of
words. This also helps the child learn expressions and communicate their
emotions. Attached is an article I found regarding this study.
The doppler shift, also known as doppler effect, was
mentioned in the book, See What I’m Saying in the beginning chapters.
The doppler shift is the
change in frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative
to the wave source. It is named after the Austrian physicist Christian
Doppler. An example of this is when an ambulance passes you with its siren blaring.
The frequencies change as the object moves further away or closer to the
observer. A mathematical formula can be used to determine the observed
frequency in the doppler shift. Blind people are able to interpret their
surroundings by using this method whether they know they are using it or not. The
doppler shift is often connected with the use of echolocation. The different frequencies
allow blind people to determine when it is safe to cross a road and etc.
Lip reading is something a lot of people rely on. Especially when it comes to the hard of hearing population, they need to watch peoples mouths when they are speaking. One girl in particular that I know said COVID-19 pandemic negatively effected her life when masks were mandated because of the fact that she relied on lip reading. People's facial expressions matter as well because when one's auditory system is not functioning well, they are trying to make sense of the words being spoken by lip reading as well as the facial expressions that come along with talking.
Baseball/ Softball was one of the only sports I did not really play while growing up. Rosenblum was discussing in chapter two about the sound of the ball. According to Rosenblum (2010), as the ball is hit, "the loudness increases relatively slowly at first and then increases much more rapidly as the ball gets near" (p. 48). That is how the fielder knows the ball is coming and when to dive for it. Our auditory system is special because without it, it would be a little more difficult for the fielders to have the sense of when exactly to dive for the ball.
Rosenblum discusses in one of the chapters the experience of going to a restaurant and eating in the dark. The group of people who went were sitting further away at the table than they usually would. Rosenblum noted how not being able to see the food that they were eating resulted in the taste being odd. They could not distinguish what they were eating and said that the taste was very bland. I think this was really interesting when reading about it. I personally never tried eating in the pitch black where I could not see my food, but I do not think I would want to try that after Rosenblum's experience.
I remember watching one of the bachelor shows on television and one of the dates was blindfolded while eating. The food options were pizza, pasta, an apple, and a few others. The guy mistaken pizza for lasagna. I was baffled when watching that because I did not understand how he got lasagna when taking a bite of pizza. Turns out now I understand why. Vision has an effect on our taste when not being able to see.
An interesting topic that was brought up in the book was how vision affects a persons posture. According to Rosenblum (2010) an experiment was done with subjects in a non-moving room where they were asked to stand still and look at a targeted position 10 feet away and then move their focus without moving there eyes at a target 1 foot away (p.274). The study found through the postural sway of the subjects that their movements were influenced by where they focused. This study proves how your vision controls your posture and is integrated to other systems in your body. It also shows how your body uses all of your sense to perceive your environment.
All of this talk about perception and our ability to expand on our senses got me thinking about Sensory Processing Disorders (SPD). Commonly found in people with Autism, ADHD, and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (among other conditions), people with SPD experience difficulty in integrating sensory information. This impaired ability to process sensory stimuli can lead to a lot of life problems. The ability to detect sensory information and interpret it are vital to our experience of the world around us, but a person with SPD can be fixated with or overwhelmed by the sensory information that enters their brain. This can lead to emotional dysregulation, and can seem like a behavioral issue they might have control over or can be consequenced through, when in reality it is a biological difference that may require considered support.
Studies are showing that those with SPD have quantifiable and structural brain differences causing their integration issues. These issues might present as hypersensitivity to any sense (sound, sight, touch, smell, or taste), distraction and/or avoidance, and/or a problem with fine motor skills. Advanced MRI studies using diffusion tensor imaging have shown that those with SPD have abnormal white matter tracts, which handles perceiving, thinking, and learning.
"The imaging detected abnormal white matter tracts in SPD subjects, primarily involving areas in the back of the brain, that serve as connections for the auditory, visual, and somatosensory (tactile) systems involved in sensory processing, including their connections between the left and right halves of the brain," (Bunim, 2013). It is now believed that the abnormal paths sensory information takes in the the brain of a person with SPD is what makes the processing and integrating of information so difficult.
Better understanding the causality of sensory processing disorders will enable therapists, clinicians and educators to properly support those with SPD to be successful by developing methods that accommodate and assist with biological brain differences. Just as we wouldn't force a person with blindness to operate as though they can see without assistive technologies, perhaps we shouldn't force a child who becomes dysregulated by too much sensory input to simply endure it, or berate them. Noise dampening head phones would be a form of assistive technology for someone with an audible sensory processing disorder. This information about sensory processing disorder as a structural disorder should be considered when working with that population. This recognition and development of thoughtful, constructive approaches to SPD would be a marked improvement from traumatizing, punishing, or labeling this population with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or other mental health disorder.
Bunim, J. (2013). Breakthrough study reveals biological basis for sensory processing in kids. University of California San Franscso. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2013/07/107316/breakthrough-study-reveals-biological-basis-sensory-processing-disorders-kids
Owen, J.P., Marco, J.E., Desai, S., Fourie, E., Harris, J., Hill, S.S., Arnett, A.B., & Mukherjee, P. (2013). Abnormal white matter microstructure in children with sensory processing disorders. NeuroImage: Clinical, Volume 2, pp. 844-853, ISSN 2213-1582, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2013.06.009. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213158213000776)
David Eagleman is a Stanford professor of neuroscience, author, and cofounder of the company, Neosensory. Eagleman believes that, "Our experience of reality is constrained by our biology," meaning that human beings are only picking up on a small slice of the sensory information available in the world because they lack the proper biological receptors. He calls that slice of sensory information any creature can receive their umvelt, which means "the surrounding world" in German. Eagleman points out how ticks are blind and deaf but they sense temperature and taste to target their prey, how bats use echolocation to build a full reality, or how honey bees use ultraviolet. Each creature, including humans, believes in the world that their senses build for them, and his team at Neosensory is working on technology to expand peoples' understanding and experience of the world around them by allowing them to expand their inputs.
Interestingly, Eagleman refers to our sense inputs (our nose, our fingertips, or ears) as plug and play peripherals, and thinking that way has allowed them to develop other peripherals. He references sonic glasses that buzz as they encounter objects, and discusses how they can be used with either headphones for hearing people or just tactilely on the skin for the deaf to deliver information, and says that after a few weeks blind people can interpret that information. His lab decided to work with deaf people to develop a wearable vest and watch that translates sound to vibrations. Eagleman says that just after 4 days, their profoundly deaf subject could sense words (12:00), and it is excepted that after 3 months he will have developed another path for hearing, through his skin. Eagleman and his team considered the technology that makes a cochlear implant work and have not only made it less invasive they have made it much less expensive, which makes a fuller sensory experience available to more people. Neosensory currently offers products for hearing loss, tinnitus and deafness, but they are working to expand their products so that people can have a greater experience of the world. https://neosensory.com/
The McGurk Effect is defined as “a powerful multisensory illusion occurring with audiovisual speech.” In order for this experiment to take place, a voice must be recorded which articulates a consonant. The acoustic speech alone is able to be recognized without any confusion. For example, if the recorded voice is saying “Ba, ba, ba” and an individual listens only, they will be able to identify this sound. However, after incorporating a visual aspect into the recorded voice, an individual is typically no longer able to correctly identify the recorded voice. An individual may hear “Da, da, da” instead, for example.
The McGurk Effect has sparked limitless amounts of research. According to researchers, the “reason for the great impact is that this is a striking demonstration of multisensory integration.” The McGurk Effect integrates auditory and visual information and tries to merge them into a unified percept. The McGurk Effect is one which may be complicated to understand for individuals—myself included. This YouTube video provides a detailed explanation as well as an example of the McGurk Effect and I highly recommend watching for clarification: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtsfidRq2tw.
Overall, the McGurk Effect takes place when an individual incorrectly perceives what another individual’s lip movements are saying. The McGurk Effect can affect individuals in daily life—especially during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. As everyone knows, the pandemic brought about challenges such as wearing a mask while in public and while interacting with other individuals. It is no surprise that with the masks, one may misinterpret what is being said as what one is seeing, and hearing does not align with one another. Without seeing an individual’s lips during conversation, communication becomes extremely difficult and can produce inaccurate results at times. There is lots of information regarding how the McGurk Effect has become a critical aspect during the Covid-19 pandemic and I recommend doing further research if interested!
Amputations must occur for a variety of reasons: injuries, diabetes, infections, cancer, and so on. If an individual is not learning to live day to day with an amputation, the individual may never realize some of the hardships amputees must learn to cope with. One of the most widely studied phenomena that approximately 90% of amputees face is that of phantom pain. Phantom limb pain (PLP) is described as ongoing painful sensations that seem to be coming from the part of the limb that is no longer there. While the limb is physically not part of the body any longer, this pain is very real. Amputees describe the pain as burnings, twisting, itching, and even pressure. PLP typically begins soon after surgery and can last for seconds, minutes, hours, and even days.
One of the therapy techniques associated with PLP is called mirror therapy. Mirror therapy was initially described as a successful treatment in the mid 1990’s by Dr. Vilayanur Racmachandran. Mirror therapy works by essentially tricking the brain into thinking there is no pain. Pain signals are known to be processed in specialized areas of the brain. Mirror therapy can help change the inputs and outputs in terms of pain by receiving input that tricks the brain into believing both limbs are intact. The brain is able to change the input and output of the pain by following a few basic steps:
Grab a standard mirror.
Sit where appropriate for the amputation and position the mirror across the midline of the body. The amputation site should be hidden behind the mirror.
The mirror should reflect the functional, healthy limb. Due to this, the brain encodes the information that no amputation has occurred.
Stabilize the mirror and perform certain movements such as circle motions with the functional limb. This movement will trick the brain into thinking both limbs are moving and make it seem as if no amputation ever occurred.
These steps help rewire the brain and help reduce and even eliminate pain that was associated at the amputation site.
For a first hand experience from an amputee who can better explain mirror therapy, I found this informational YouTube. This is not from a doctor, physical therapist, specialist, or anyone aside from an individual who is navigating PLP and educating others on her personal experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytw4GMz88Y
Things in life are often taken for granted; especially when it comes to your senses. After reading the text, I found myself taking my five perfectly in tact senses for granted. Being able to read someone's facial expression and body language is crucial to social engagements in society; even more so during the COVID-19 pandemic. Masks have made it more difficult to read facial expressions, so reading body language became more precedent.
Smiles are contagious. Happiness is contagious. They also, however, can be chronic. I remember growing up, whenever I was upset my parents would tell me that if I frowned for too long that my face would permanently stay in a frown. I thought this claim had no truth behind it until reading the text. Chronic facial expressions are often referred to as "expressive habits", and can influence the overall structure of your face as you age.
I was very interested in this part of the book, so I did some more research. This article debunks the parental caution of your-face-staying-like-that. The term is called Strabismus, and is known more commonly as a lazy eye or wandering eye. This is not something that can happen over time, but is something that someone is born with, and is completely normal!
Out of the experiments discussed in the book, the one discussed in Facing the Uncanny Valley. Relating to how covert reactions can determine your own emotions, the imagined experiment discussed how holding a pen in between your teeth would correlate to you rating cartoons as funnier than if you were holding the pen with your lips or just in your hand.
This is because when holding the pen with your teeth, you are sort of activating the muscles in your face used to smile. Your facial expression when holding the pen with your teeth could subliminally cause you to be in a happier state, even if you are not purposely smiling or even aware you are doing it.
If you're ever having a bad day, walk around with a pen between your teeth for a while! It may subtly boost your mood.
Taste can be hindered when you are not able to see what you are eating. Rosenblum discusses in the book how bland tasting he found his food when him and a friend visited a completely dark restaurant. I found his taste observations intriguing. I thought that even though his sense of sight was taken away, since he could still smell the food wouldn't it still have a more profound taste than if both senses were taken away?
So I decided to test this out. Luckily my best friend is also a psychology major, so she understood what I wanted to do and why. We chose three fruits; apple, pear and watermelon. Specifically these fruits as they are somewhat similar in texture but vary in taste. While one was blindfolded, the other gave the three fruits in a random order. We both agreed that the texture was similar, but had a hard time differentiating. The most difficult was the difference between apple and pear. For me, watermelon was easy to identify as it has that specific 'watery bite'. But apple and pear were hard for both of us. Tasting similar and bland.
What we thought would be easy, making a distinction between 3 differently tasting fruits, showed some challenges and correlated to Rosenblum's personal findings.
Echolocation was a topic I found quite intriguing to read about in the book. When you are a person who does not use echolocation, it can be easy to think, "How does one successfully do this?". Echolocation is used by those who are visually impaired. They produce clicking sounds to determine how close they are to surrounding objects.
I had an experience with a person who uses echolocation at my job recently. I am a hostess at a restaurant in Atlantic City. A lady entered the restaurant and right away I could tell she was visually impaired. She was navigating with a 'white cane'. However, she was only holding the cane, not moving it around as some visually impaired people do. As she approached the host stand I could hear her making clicking noises, and to my surprise she stopped about a foot in front of the host stand and started talking. It was amazing to see what we have learned about happen right in front of me.
The term "anosmia" refers to the loss of one's sense of smell. There are several drugs, disorders, hormonal changes, and substances that might permanently impair one's sense of smell. People become less sensitive to scents as they age, and women have a more poor sense of smell than males. To some extent, there is evidence that scent sensitivity is inherited.Even a slight loss of scent may cause you to lose interest in eating, which can lead to weight loss, poor nutrition, or, in severe cases, depression.
Sometimes a person's sense of smell returns on its own. Unfortunately, anosmia is not always curable, especially if it is caused by old age. There are, however, things you may do to make life with the inability to smell more comfortable and secure. Install smoke and fire alarms in your house and business, for example, and take additional precautions with leftovers. If you have any doubts regarding the safety of a food, don't consume it. This is demonstrated in See what I mean: the extraordinary powers of our five senses By Laurence Rosenblum. When Karl Wuensch was diagnosed with anosmic.
This is a great video down below, where it explains further on Anosmia:
Lipreading, according to the motor theory of speech perception, is an important component of speech perception. You may be able to learn how to read lips if you pay attention to the movement of your lips and face, as well as the movement of your tongue. Humans perceive spoken words, according to this theory, by recognizing the vocal tract motions with which they are delivered rather than by detecting the sound patterns that speech produces. You may also learn to read lips by reading the lips of others. Most natural speakers of a language can do speechreading without even realizing it. This is due to the fact that they use information from their lips and expressions to help them grasp what is being spoken.
In noisy environments, for example, speech perception increases when the listener can see the speaker's mouth and integrate visual and audible speech information. Another example of how speech perception may benefit not only persons who have hearing loss, but also others who are attempting to communicate with those folks. Many people may not be able to use sign language, therefore speaking clearly and emphasizing their words with their lips may assist those who are deaf. Deaf people who lose their hearing at an earlier age have higher spoken language reading skills. The multi-sensory integration of speech sources is essential for effective communication.
Please watch this video down below, I think it is a huge eye opener
The auditory approach system is defined by modifications in sound, and these variations are distinguished by an increase in the projected sound loudness. It's likely that a good many of us are utilizing an auditory approach method without even realizing it. The Auditory Approach System is essentially a warning and protection system against imminent danger from other sources, such as a speeding car that might hit a person and cause them bodily harm or even death. It does this by transmitting a sound that alerts the person that a potential threat is approaching. It's possible that this may help visually impaired persons determine when it's safe for them to cross the street with the assistance of others. Individuals who have been blind for an extended period of time often have the ability to accurately anticipate the arrival of visual items.
Synesthesia is a systematic and involuntary sensory experience induced by an unrelated stimulus. For some people, looking at like Zana Devitto seeing a number induces a color which is letter-color synesthesia. There are multiple forms of synesthesia Some of the lesser common types are when certain flavors are induced after certain words. Personally, I have never heard of this being a thing before and reading this topic really interested me because I had no idea that the human mind could do that, knowing that it can do extraordinary things.
References
Rosenblum, L.D. (2011) See What I'm Saying:The Extraordinary Powers of our Five Senses. Norton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVC3E16FCrk - What it is like to have synesthesia
Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), sometimes also called "auto sensory meridian response"- a tingling sensation that usually begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. A pleasant form of paresthesia, it has been compared with auditory-tactile synesthesia and may overlap with frisson.
(Autonomous sensory meridian response) is a relaxing, often sedative sensation that begins on the scalp and moves down the body. Also known as "brain massage," it's triggered by placid sights and sounds such as whispers, accents, and crackles.
A short version of it is chills down your back from a slow sound or movement. People listen to ASMR to be able to calm down and fall asleep. Some make videos of doing ASMR for people to listen to it. It helps stimulate the brain and calm it down
Touch is something that is very important to our everyday lives. We use this sense everyday for almost every task that we do. Eating? You use your hands to put the sandwich in your mouth. Brushing your teeth? You pick your toothbrush up. Riding a bike? You hold the handlebars. With everything we do, we use our sense of touch every day. Touch is so important to our human bodies.
After doing some more research I came across the Greek root- anesthesia, which means “no sensation,” synesthesia means “joined sensation,” wherein two or more senses are coupled in such a way that a voice, for example, is not only heard but also felt, seen, or tasted. We call individuals with this coupling synesthetes.
These types of synesthesia consist of experiencing taste or smell sensations triggered by the sense of touch. They can be a response to one of two types of stimulus: either touching certain textures, or being touched.
Lip syncing is when you talk with your lips but don't speak any words. People who use lip syncing the most is deaf and mute people. it helps them a lot with being able to read lips of the person who cant talk/hear. I think this is so important to be able to help people who can't talk or hear. it is said that the average person is more intelligent in reading lips than most tasks.
Lip reading can be crucial for us when trying to understand people when our auditory systems cannot. This consists on interpreting speech based on our visuals that we get from the speakers facial features. Lip reading is also known to improve one's auditory speech, especially when speech isn't articulated well enough. It's said that seeing audio clips where videos of the speakers face are visible, while not hearing them, the average person is quite good at reading lips.
There's also evidence that visual speech is recorded into acoustic information systems in your brain. When visual speech is turned into an acoustic information it's being extracted from visual cortices in the brain.
When first hearing about tadoma I was a bit confused because I had never heard of it before. I decided to dive in deeper and do my own additional research. It honestly sounded like a newfound discovery until I had read the definition that Helen Keller utilized tadoma! It is a very difficult form of communication that is rarely used today. When looking up the instructions I found out why. It has very specific instructions that would probably take years and years to master.
“Tadoma.” Sense, 5 May 2022, https://www.sense.org.uk/information-and-advice/communication/tadoma/.
Rosenblum, L. D. (2011). See what I’m saying: The extraordinary powers of our five senses. Norton Paperback.
Synesthesia is probably the most interesting phenomenon in this chapter for me. I have seen this many times before on social media! Many creators or influencers create paintings based on names or associating colors with a taste or flavors! However, I did not realize that Synesthesia is as common as it is! The book states an example of number-color Synesthesia. Below is a video that I found very informative while understanding Synesthesia. Check it out!
The auditory system is something I found quite interesting. It processes how we hear and understand sounds within the environment. By hearing future sound it warns us about what to expect next, for example, blind baseball players ! “The pitch is timed and placed with the intent of the batter connecting with the ball (players’ batting averages typically run from .500 to .750). This is the reason for the pitcher’s “Ready, set, ball” warning, as well as why he pitches from just 20 feet in front of the batter. Each batter gets four strikes rather than three, but each team gets three outs, the one exception being if a fielder actually catches a ball on the fly.” With the audible warning, the batter is able to hit the ball without visually seeing it.
Rosenblum, L. D. (2011). See what I’m saying: The extraordinary powers of our five senses. Norton Paperback.
I decided to write my next post on speech perception and lip reading since they work hand and hand together. I work for Deborah Heart and Lungs specialty Physicians as a Certified Medical assistant. My duties and responsibilities are to update patients medical records and perform EKG's daily on the patients. I feel like it's a must, I collaborate on how difficult it has been lately to perform my job duties due to Mask requirements. Wearing a mask consistently in the office has created a barrier for the patient and I to communicate.
First and foremost the mask is hindering us from seeing a smile. We all know at times going to the doctors can be a little scary and who would not love to see a bright big beautiful smile upon entering a doctors office. Smiles alter moods from scary to secure and smiles are expressions of personality such as happy and give the ability to enlighten someone's day.
Not to mention wearing a mask hinder our ability to lip read each other's lips. In the book See What I'm Saying by Rosenblum pg. 245 lip reading enhances the speech we hear. Lip reading influences your auditory brainstem. Which allows the communicators to understand one another easier. Hiding this sense behind a mask is an indication of the challenges and frustration the healthcare care workers have to adjust to and endure because one doesn't realize how difficult it is to perform your job duties when you're stripped of an extraordinary power of our five sense such as lip reading and speech perception. Through this chapter 10 it helps me recognize the barriers we are up against and provide me knowledge to work through them until this world gets back to normalcy. I can't wait for the mask to be uplifterd for health care workers. So our patient will not only hear us speak but feel us as well.
Taste among humans is influenced by a multitude of things—smell, sight, sound, and even touch. Touch is a sense in which most people probably don’t realize just how much touch alone can influence the way we perceive food. One particular example is how Linda Blade struggles with consuming leftovers that contain any meat product. Though this sounds silly, it’s more than likely that lots of individuals struggle with similar issues.
This particular example has encouraged me to explore that of sensory processing disorders (SPD) and how that pertains to eating disorders. SPD “occurs when the brain has difficulty processing information through the senses” (Lyons). As demonstrated throughout this chapter, the way individuals perceive food is influenced significantly by all of the senses and so, when one sense is not processed successfully this can cause significant impairment to how much an individual may enjoy food. Eating disorders are a topic that has been widely spoken about in recent times and SPD relates to eating disorders in a variety of ways. According to Lyons: “Eating a meal is a complex sensory experience consisting of foods with ranging appearance, odoros, textures, and tastes, as well as other individuals who contribute to conversation and hearing senses during meal time” (Lyons). This information corresponds with Rosenblum’s See What I’m Saying and how taste is influenced by all the senses.
Research suggests that eating less than 10 foods and experiencing significant difficulties in trying new foods may propose that an eating disorder is emerging. Touch relating to food includes texture, temperature, irritants in the food—such as spicy foods—and these all influence an individual when determining if they find a food pleasant or not. Sensory specialists work with individuals to encourage them to approach foods from different perspectives. Though SPD and eating disorders can exist independently of one another, there is significant increase in dual diagnosis rates. Exploring further connections among these two diagnoses may be beneficial in finding ways to incorporate new foods into an individual's diet while making the experience as pleasant as possible while also eliminating the negative reactions as much as possible.
For a real life example of living with SPD regarding foods, I found this video to help explain it from the perspective of a mom who deals with SPD every day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJxX8I3dx8g.
The psychology of Perception involves the interaction of our senses and our conscious mind. Perception is involved in every aspect of our lives as we make decisions and judgments based on what we experience. If you study diligently you will leave this course with a broad understanding of sensation and perception. From this general understanding you will be able to further investigate areas of interest by means of literature review and research on specific topics.
