Some people are born with a missing limb as a product of a genetic marker, or a deformity. Others need a limb amputated due to physical injury, cancer, infections, etc. A common occurrence that happens to most people after their limb is amputated is called phantom limb pain. This is when someone still feels the pain that a limb would feel. For example, after getting your left leg amputated, you run into a corner of a table, and feel a painful sensation that happens after stubbing your toe, except your foot is not there anymore.
To conduct research on this phenomenon, the rubber hand illusion has allowed researchers to collect and gather information on phantom limb pain. To conduct this, your forearms are facing down on the table, are separated by a wooden block, so you are unable to see what is happening to the left arm. A rubber hand is then put in place of your left hand with identical positioning to your right hand.
The researcher then strokes both hands with a small paintbrush, giving a sensation to your nerves, allowing you to feel the stroking motion of the brush. After a couple minutes of this, you begin to feel the rubber hand as your own. Your body then would respond as if the rubber hand was your own as well. To test this, the researcher may grab the index finger of the rubber hand and bend it so far backwards that if it was your real hand, the finger would break. Most subjects feel this pain on the rubber hand as their own.
After reading this chapter of the book, I went on YouTube to watch videos on how this test worked. Here is a link below to video I watched.
One topic discussed in the book is the power of scents and how it adds emotions to our memories. Everyday we come across scents, however there is always that one scent that you come across that stops you in your tracks and forces an epiphany on you. A memory that was once buried deep in your mind was suddenly triggered by that one scent that has forced you to recall that memory. For example, you walk by a new bakery shop down your street and a scent causes you to stop in your tracks and forces you to recall the smell of your grandma's house you once used to visit. Not only does scent have the ability to force you to recall a memory but it allows you to recall it in such vivid details and which you then become attached to that scent emotionally. This is known as Proustian Hypothesis.
Businesses and companies have taken advantage of the effects of scents and incorporated them into their own ways. In an article titled “What the nose knows” written by Colleen Walsh, Colleen quotes a 2018 article by Harvard Business Review which states “Scent branding is in vogue across a range of industries, including hotels that often pump their signature scents into rooms and lobbies.” Colleen goes on to comment how brands and companies often try to stand out from competing companies by using scents to have guests differentiate them emotionally and memorably. How are companies able to effectively pull this off? With the help of our olfactory bulb, which is a structure in the front of our brain that sends information to our body's central command.
The power of scent is what pushed Don Goldworm who is the co-founder of her “Olfactory Branding Company” who developed a thesis on olfactory branding at NYU. Goldworm states that “smell is the only fully developed sense a fetus has in the womb” as well as it being “the most developed in a child”. Goldworm makes reference to these facts because it is during our childhood where we determine what scents we like or dislike. This is where companies step in and use this to their own advantage to market themselves off by using scents that we associate with our childhood memories. If I had not come across this book I would not have known this interesting fact. Especially with companies finding new ways to appeal to all different groups of people, it is interesting to read how they use something like sent to market themselves off.
Walsh, C. (2020, February 27). How scent, emotion, and memory are intertwined - and exploited. Harvard Gazette. Retrieved June 22, 2022, from https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/how-scent-emotion-and-memory-are-intertwined-and-exploited/
Interpersonal synchrony is when two people interact and tend to mirror
what the other is doing in terms of their facial and body movements (emotions and behaviors). A good example of this
is when we are playing with infants or young children. They often start to
mimic the parent and do what they are doing. It is part of the bonding parents
have with their children. The children learn from them and also can begin to
act like their parents in certain ways.
Simple things such as
touching or singing to a child becomes a form of interpersonal synchrony
between infants and their caregivers. These interactions are important for
early childhood development. This allows children to understand themselves and
others. When we are interacting with children, we often do so through the use of
expressions. The children then mimic these expressions and learn how to use
them in different situations. This does not always have to do with playful
interactions. Interactions of any sort can develop into interpersonal
synchrony. For example, When the young child does something they are not
supposed to, they see the parent has an angry facial expression and over time
they learn that that is the expression to use when you are upset. They then
begin to use the same expressions when they feel similar emotions and so on.
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 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.
