What we would like you to do is to
find a topic from this week's chapter that you were interested in and search
the internet for material on that topic.
Please be sure to use at least 3
quality resources. If you use videos, please limit it to one video.
Once you have completed your search
and explorations we would like you to:
1a) State what your topic is.
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
2) Next, we would like you to take
the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize
it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner. By
integrating/synthesizing we mean taking what your read/experienced from the
internet search organize the information into the main themes, issues, info,
examples, etc. about your topic and then write about the topic in your own
words using the information you have about the topic.
3) At the end of your post, please
include working URLs for the three websites. For each
URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it
contributed to your post.
1a) The topic I have choose to take a closer look at from chapter 10, is synesthesia.
1b) This topic relates to this chapter directly because there is a section titled synesthesia: the sound of colors and it goes on to discuss what the condition entails, and gives a few examples of what people may experience.
1c) I am interested in this topic because it is such an unusual condition that you don’t regularly hear about in day to day life. I would guess that most people don’t even know what it is, and have never heard of it before. I want to learn more about this condition, if it is genetic, if there are any disadvantages/advantages of having it, is there a way of treating it, and I would also like to learn about some specific case studies.
2) Synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to automatic experiences in another pathway. People with this condition can hear colors, see sounds, their perceptions have many modalities corresponding to different ways of experiencing the world. In addition to their five senses they add in modalities such as words, numbers and colors. There are many different forms of synesthesia including: Grapheme-color (individual letters of the alphabet associated with a color or shade), Chromesthesia (people associate sounds with colors), auditory-tactile (certain sounds induce sensations in different parts of the body), and many more. In order for this condition to be diagnosed it must meet a few different criteria: it must be involuntary/automatic, their perceptions are spatially extended, their percepts are consistent and generic, they are highly memorable, and it is laden with affect. The most common types of synesthesia are colored days of the week and colored graphemes.
A lot of what is known about synesthesia is based of a skewed population of those who are educated on the matter, because those who are not don’t know they even have a condition because they perceive it as their normal perceptions. Therefore it is hard to come up with exact numbers of those who have it, and it is hard to see if the way people perceive things is standardized across everyone who does have it. It has been estimated that about 1 in every 100,000 or 1 to 5,000 may have the condition, but again this is generated by self report. People with this condition often have had it for as long as they can remember, they are usually female, their seems to be a somewhat genetic component related to it, and those with it tend to be more artistic/creative and they perform better on cognitive assessment tests and memory tests, but lower on spatial functioning tests. This condition is not a disease, they are not mentally ill, and they score negatively on tests checking for schizophrenia, psychosis, delusions, and other disorders. It is also not the result of intense drug use. There has been proof that synesthesia does actually occur using fMRI’s and other tests. This condition typically does not get in the way of living a normal life, these people actually pity non-synesthetes because they have a one-dimensional sensory experience with life. However, when a certain stimulus produces an aversive synesthetic experience it can be bothersome.
One of the least common forms of synesthesia includes word-gustatory synesthesia where hearing or seeing a word evokes an involuntary taste association. Only 5 cases of this have been documented in the past century, one being the case of a woman who goes by TD. TD was tested on her synesthesia by GEndel who presented her with 806 random words and she had to write down the taste she associated with them. A control group of 9 other women did this same task. 3 months later both groups were tested again and TD wrote the same associations down, but the other 9’s were different and no association was made. This supported TD in saying that she had this type of synesthesia. This is just one case of many that show how unusual this condition is.
3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
This website was very useful because it gave a good overview of what the condition is, some different characteristics of it, a few different forms, diagnostic criteria, epidemiology, history and research behind it, and even some information on how it is incorporated into todays society and culture.
http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/12/04/tasting-words-a-study-of-one-o/
This website was very interesting because it provided a case study on one of their rarest forms of synesthesia which is tasting words. It provided information on what life is like for a person with this condition, and gave information on different experiments they have done on people with this form.
http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/12/04/tasting-words-a-study-of-one-o/
This website was useful because it provided a lot of important information one might want to seek if they think they might have it. They explain what life is like with a person who may have it, some of the difficulties they may face, how common it is, they explain whether or not it is considered a disease, and lastly they touch on the proof on how they know it exists.
Topical Blog Chapter 10
My topic for this week’s blog is synesthesia. Synesthesia is being able to experience a sensation through one perceptual modality such as vision and also experience it in another modality such as audition. This is very interesting to me because without my senses, I would not be able to experience life in the way I do. I am able to feel sounds, see objects in color, and taste objects or shapes. Synesthesia is intriguing as it looks at how individuals’ senses are entwined. This is such an interesting topic as it looks at how each of our sensations are overlapped. It also explains how we can use multiple senses to interpret a situation.
In chapter 10 on pages 293-296, synesthesia is discussed. The textbook explains how there may be positive relationships between our senses. For example, while you are reading you may hear sounds in relation to what you are reading. Not everyone may experience this, but researchers believe synesthesia is in connection with the physical characteristics of the natural world. If objects are alike, physically, then you are more likely to experience synesthesia. Our textbook explains this when discussing the link between sights and sounds and how our brain interprets these situations.
From my research, I have determined who experiences synesthesia and how it may be caused. First, synesthesia is biological and automatically unlearned. It is distinct from hallucinations and the condition runs in families, being more common among women. Researchers have determined that synesthesia is common among one in two thousand people. People experiencing sensory overload become exhausted from so much brain stimulation that these individuals tend to experience synesthesia. Overall, researchers believe that synesthesia allows for people to have a “bonus” sense.
People with synesthesia think in a unique way. For example, a person with synesthesia my associate a particular number with a color or associate each day of the week with a different color. These individuals may also visualize a particular month with a particular location or associate a shrill sound with a certain color. Individuals can determine if they may have the condition of synesthesia by taking a Synesthesia Battery Test. This test was developed my researchers in which you will answer question similar to the examples provided above.
Overall, synesthesia is where people have a sensory crossover that affect their relationship of their senses. Brains of synesthetes appear to be anatomically different. Neural connections between sensory parts of the brain have more of a myelinated sheath surrounding their neurons. This myelinated sheath enables neural signals to travel more quickly causing individuals to experiences two senses at one time. Synesthesia is like a “union of your senses!”
http://www.synesthete.org/
This URL provided a more scientific definition of synesthesia. It also explained the Synesthesia Battery Test and examples of what people with synesthesia experience and may think about in their everyday lives.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/03/12/174132392/synesthetes-really-can-taste-the-rainbow
This URL explained how synesthesia affects our brain, how synesthetes have a quicker neural connection, and that this condition is like a sensory crossover. It also provided examples of people who have experienced this condition.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar01/synesthesia.aspx
This URL discussed who experiences synesthesia and what the causes are. It also provided statistical data in relation to synesthesia overtime.
The chapter dedicated a section in the textbook for synesthesia, providing great details and a case study for a more personal experience regarding the disorder. although it is a genetic condition in which people experience a sensation by many other different senses, I wonder whether it is possible to “develop” synesthesia, since I believe that many people would like to have such experiences.
Synesthesia experiences are said to activate not only the brain areas that typically process sensory input of the current events, synesthesia also has an impact on the structural reorganization of the brain. Research has shown successful attempts to training non-synesthetic with synesthetic associations by mimicking some behavioral aspects. This suggests that structural brain reorganization is actually a consequence of the sustained coupling of inducers.
I looked up drugs induced synesthesia, and there are cases where the consumption of LSD and psilocybin mushrooms can provoke sensations similar to synesthesia, however it is not genuine synesthesia since one does not become synesthetic by consuming drugs that elicit synesthesia. Illicit drugs are also not recommended for achieving such experiences. Synesthesia can be a psychoactive effect when using substances; nerve cells contain many receptors for the psychoactive keys in the drugs, and that is how substances influence the function of the brain.
However, not all synesthetic experiences are the same. Some reported that the colors of music become less intensive after the consumption of LSD, and some report that the sensation of smell and taste of pictures become more intensive after consuming the same drugs. Some report that music become clearer and sharper.
However, studies on drugs-induced synesthesia and teaching yourself to develop synesthesia are still very inconclusive. One study focused on the more common type of synesthesia: the color-graphemic synesthesia, in which people perceive colors when they are reading letters. During the study the researchers exposed the participants to customized chromatized texts. The results suggested that the exposure to colored letters, the participants built up an association between colors and letters that existed independently – pseudo-synesthesia.
http://www.frontiersin.org/Human_Neuroscience/researchtopics/Developing_synaesthesia/1244
This website gives some background information regarding the neuroscience behind synesthesia, which is very helpful in helping me to understand why training people to become synesthetic is even possible.
http://synaesthesia.com/en/information/allgemein/drogen/
This website gives information on drugs induced synesthesia. Although very little information is available, but it is explained in a clear and interesting matter
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/can-you-teach-yourself-synesthesia/259519/
This website provides an example of a study where researchers train participants to become synesthetic. It is useful because I needed the information on the methods that are used to “teach” yourself to become synesthetic, which is a genetic condition that you can only be born with.
I chose to do my topic this week on E.C. Tolman and cognitive maps because I think it is really interesting to understand how our brains help us to remember our environment. In the previous chapter it talked about how there is still a lot of controversy over whether our brains remember everything from point A to point B or if it just remembers certain objects or landmarks and fills in the rest of the information. I wanted to get a better idea of how our cognitive maps work as well as the mastermind behind the term, E.C. Tolman.
Edward Chance Tolman was a psychologist who made many contributions to the areas of learning and motivation. He is categorized now as a cognitive behaviorist. Tolman studied under Hugo Munsterberg when he was doing nonsense syllable studies. Tolman was an instructor for a few years but lost his job after making anti-war statements during World War I. Tolman went on to instruct elsewhere and was highly successful. He was known for conducting rat experiments the most popular of those being his maze running. He experimented with how reinforcement changed the effectiveness of rats finding their way through complex mazes. Tolman referred to the term latent learning to describe the learning that occurs before rewards are introduced. Tolman felt that we as humans engage in latent learning everyday but we only really realize it when we need to find a certain location or object.
Tolman’s work with cognitive maps led to the concepts of spatial memory and thinking that this week’s chapter spoke about. Cognitive maps are our brains mental representations of actual physical locations. We use our cognitive maps to help us find different places. We remember specific important features in the environment to help us remember the route. A cognitive map can actually be quite different from the actual place you are trying to find because our cognitive maps only include what we felt was important. That means that two people could start at the same place with the destination of getting to Wal-Mart and in their head that same route could look very different. One way to test this is to have people draw a map of a certain location. This gives a better idea of what features they find important. We can also judge the things that are less important to the participant by what they choose to omit. One thing that I found particularly interesting is the difference between someone with a physical handicap and someone that doesn’t have one. Their maps look a lot different because someone in a wheelchair is more likely to include obstacles that they would have to get around versus the non-handicap who probably includes a lot less detail.
It’s amazing how quickly our brains recover from and fix our mistakes. If I take a wrong turn while driving, the likelihood of me doing that again is very small because my brain fixes its cognitive map. Animals also learn very quickly. I watched a video of a rat running in a maze to find food. It did three trials and between the first and second it shaved off 20 seconds. Between the second and third it shaved off another 10 seconds. I notice that in different activities I do as well. When I’m learning how to find something on the computer for the first time at work it takes me a while to make all the necessary mouse clicks in order to find the document I’m looking for. After finding it just a few more times I can get there in almost no time and with no hesitation. Our brains are really quite efficient at this once the map gets a little practice.
Terminology: E.C. Tolman, cognitive maps, learning, motivation, Hugo Munsterberg, latent learning, spatial learning, reinforcement
Edward C. Tolman
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
This source helped to give a timeline of E.C. Tolman’s life as long as his accomplishments and studies in the area of cognitive psychology.
Mapping: Cognitive Maps
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/faculty_sites/sommerb/sommerdemo/mapping/cogmap.htm
This source gave a good description of cognitive maps and included studies that have been done to test them.
Cognitive Maps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k7oikkz9mg
I watched the part of this video that involved the rat running through the maze. I’d never actually seen this before and it gives a really good idea of just how the brain works in order to fix previous mistakes and work more efficiently.
1. This week I choose to do my topical blog on the use of visualization in athletics. This weeks chapter focused on the visual representation of knowledge. The use of visualization has become a popular and common technique that is used for top level athletes to help them master their skills. This technique uses our abilities to visualize something within our heads and takes it a step further to see how this ability can effect doing what is visualized in real life. I chose to research visualization is athletics because it is a technique that we were encouraged to take a part in while I was in high school athletics and a process that we were required to take part in before every performance with my high school show choir. I wanted to know if this actually had an effect on our performance or if it was simply a way of getting the team focused.
2. Visualization in athletics is used as a training technique to rehearse specific techniques and skills without being physically engaged in them or in the performance environment. For awhile this technique was mainly used with injured players so that they would not fall so far behind while unable to physically practice. More and more it is being see that this technique is being used for all athletes are part of their training. Visualization techniques allow for an athlete to create cognitive maps of a physical action. The rehearsal of using these cognitive maps on a regular basis allows for the techniques that are visualized and used in the cognitive map of the action to become more automatic and for the responses that follow to become natural. During the process of visualization creates the same neuromuscular activity to occur that does when the activity is physically done. This is what allows for a person that practices as well as uses visualization to learn a new skill or master an activity faster than a person that just practices the activity. The activation of the neuron and the neuromuscular responses allows for muscle memory to take place even though the muscles themselves are not actually moving. The technique of visualization also uses cognitive processes such as memory, motor control, perception, attention, and planning that aid in the mastering of a skill.
There are two types of views for visualization that are typically used techniques for athletics. Internal imagery has a person visualize an action for their own point of view. During internal imagery a person imagines the action using every sense to get a complete image that is as close as possible to the real experience. Using this imagery a person recreates and thinks about how exactly every part of her body feels and looks a the action is being done correctly. The second type of visualization is external imagery. During external imagery you visualize seeing yourself as though you were watching yourself as another person so that you are able to see every angle and part of your body. This is helpful for viewing techniques and specific movements and angles while performing a task.
When using visualization athletes visualize a number of different possible outcomes that can occur. A major tactic in visualization is to visualize high pressure situations and performing optimally within them. This helps for a person to be relaxed and perform that way when those high pressure situations arise within the performance environment. This helps to relieve stress for big games and performances that can typically lead players to make mistakes that are not normally made due to the pressure of the situation. Visualization helps to boost an athletes confidence, relieve stress, and to learn or master a specific skill.
3.http://www.sirc.ca/newsletters/february11/documents/mentalimageryinsport.pdf
This article explained the benefits of using visualization as an athlete. It also explained the two types of visualization along with how to use them.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/flourish/200912/seeing-is-believing-the-power-visualization
This website explained the processes that occur within the brain when a person partakes in visualization.
http://www.hokiesports.com/psychology/visualization.html
This website describes how to use a visualization technique.
1a) State what your topic is.
I have chosen to do more research on Synesthesia. I know multiple people are doing research on this topic so I will find more real life stories.
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
This topic is about the visual representation of knowledge. Synesthesia fits into that because it focuses on how people see things as well as other senses.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I am interested in how tasting shapes, feeling sounds, and seeing letters and numbers in colors actually works.
2) Next, we would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner.
Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sense produces experience in a completely different sense. If a person has Synesthesia, one of their senses is simultaneously perceived as if by one or more senses, such as sight. Synesthesia literally means joined perception and it can involve any of the senses. The most common thing in Synesthesia is when people see letters and numbers in color. This occurs when someone always sees a certain color with a certain letter. For example, a person with Synesthesia may see the word phone in purple and the number 3 as brown. The Cause of Synesthesia still remains a mystery.
It is rare, but a few Synesthetes can smell in color and shapes. Jaime Smith is one of those people. To Jamie, a white wine has an aquamarine, flowy, wavy color to it. Another example of someone with Synesthesia is Taria Camerino experiences her world through taste. Camerino says that she doesn’t know what the color green looks like but she knows what it tastes like. One thing I found interesting is that Camerino is a pastry chef so she sometimes gets requests to make flavor profiles. Flavor profiles include things like satisfaction and discontent.
Another example is Ingrid Carey. Some people say they are green with envy or that they feel blue but Ingrid Carey really does feel the colors. She can also taste, hear, and smell them. Carey associates so many things with color, including numbers, letters, emotions, sensations, days, and months. The way Carey sees things is much different than the way most people see things. In Carey’s world, the letter “N” is brown, “J” is green, “8” is orange, and July is bluish-green. Carey also sees colors differently, In Carey’s world, red is solid and powerful, yellow is brilliant and intense, chocolate is rich purple, and which makes Carey’s breath smell dark blue, and confusion is orange.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/03/12/174132392/synesthetes-really-can-taste-the-rainbow
This source was helpful because it gave me a little bit of background information on Synesthesia and it also gave me great life stories to read about.
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/syne.html
This source was helpful because it gave me great definitions on what Synesthesia is.
http://www.livescience.com/169-rare-real-people-feel-taste-hear-color.html
I liked this source because it told me about Ingrid Carey’s story, who lives with Synesthesia.
1) This week for my topical blog I decided to look into Synesthesia. I decided to look up this topic because it was one of the most interesting things in this chapter that I have looked at but really didn’t know much about. I thought about what it was and wanted to find out more about how one lives and feels with this disorder. I also thought that it would be interesting to know more about a disorder that I don’t know much about and to broaden my knowledge with disabilities that people go through on a daily basis. This topic is related directly back to the chapter as there is a whole section on Synesthesia. Synesthesia is looking at the visual perception of knowledge. The book also talks about how synesthesia is used to make a positive relationship between senses.
2) Synesthesia comes from a German words meaning together sensation, synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which one sensory leads to involuntary experience in a secondary sensory. One of the most common types of synesthesia is grapheme, color synesthesia or color-graphemic synesthesia which are when letters or numbers are perceived as a color. There is no diagnosis for synesthesia at this time, often times it is determined as it is often involuntary and their memory will have trouble remembering names and may often associate them with a color and remember the person’s name as the color and not the real name. They may also have many emotions like pleasurable emotions. Studies are showing that synesthesia is often found more in those of woman and those who are left handed. It is often a result of cross wiring in the brain that is causing people to develop synesthesia. To put everything in perspective I looked up information as to how one feels and sees colors in life. Often time’s people with synesthesia will not be able to function correctly in thinking about names letters numbers as the name Julie will be associated with pink and the person will no longer remember Julie but will remember pink. G is known for green, July is known as brown. These people are also able to feel colors and taste them as well. Often times these people will feel alone and or left our or isolated cause they often feel like they cannot tell anyone around them what is going on because they will judge them and or think that they are “crazy”. I think that living with synesthesia would be one of the hardest things to do in anyone’s life because you would always have that feeling as being different from everyone around you.
3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia gave me a lot of information on the history and the definition synesthesia and more types and where it came from. I found it very informational. I also found that even though it took time to read that I was able to learn a lot more about my topic.
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/syne.html This website gave me information on how it is diagnosed and who is often founded to develop synesthesia. Even though this website is directed towards the teaching of kids it helped to make sure that what I was reading was really making sense and actually game me another way to look at the topic.
http://www.livescience.com/169-rare-real-people-feel-taste-hear-color.html This website gave me a lot of information on those who live their lives with synesthesia and how they can often feel like a outcast and have no friends because they feel like they can’t say what they are feeling or know because to them everything they see feel and know are colors and people would not understand.
This week I wanted to talk about dyslexia because I thought that the information in the chapter was interesting, but there was not enough. I thought that if I did a topical blog on the subject that it would be beneficial to my understanding of cognitive psychology. First I wanted to get a better understanding of the topic to I wanted to see if I could find an article that could give me a better understanding on the basis of dyslexia.
The first article that I found was very informative, and did a good job of explaining the disorder a little better. Like I said the chapter provided some good information, but there was not enough, so I wanted to do a little more digging. The article told me that dyslexia could either be caused by a vision problem or and reading problem. Roughly 5% of children suffer from the disorder and 25% of children that suffer from dyslexia also have ADHD. I thought that this was interesting to find out and also that it made sense because I also did a topical blog on ADHD. The book had mentioned that dyslexia could be caused by a reading or a vision problem, but no one was sure as to the exact cause of the disorder. I wanted to see if there was any current information that was out there that could help to show me what the exact cause of the disorder was. For my next article I wanted to see if there was any research on the topic that could assist me, so I could know why this disorder happens in 5% of children.
The next article that I found did not give me any information that was different than what the book said of what the previous article had stated. It said the same thing in the sense that dyslexia can be caused by either a reading problem or a vision problem. I was frustrated to read about this because I wanted to know the exact reason as to why this disorder was happening. What the article said is that this disorder is more common in children than it is in adults. The article also stated that the symptoms of dyslexia can be that a pause in speech. It also said that a common symptom of dyslexia can be reading numbers and words backwards. I had know the previously because I have a friend that is dyslexia. This person shows these symptoms, and it was interesting to see the comparison between what I read in the article and what I could apply to what I have already known. The next article that I want to research I want to have a lot of information on some studies, or something that can give my more information on the topic. I am not satisfied as to the information out there on the topic. I am not sure as to if dyslexia is such a new disorder that there is not studies that have been conducted, but I intend to find something of more value that can help me in the understanding of the topic.
The next article that I found was the best article that I read, and therefore the more useful in the understanding of dyslexia. This article stated that dyslexia is not a vision problem, but that it is the area of the brain that interprets language. I thought that this was very useful, and that the other article that I read might be outdated to the knowledge. I also read that dyslexia runs in families. This means that families or parents should be tested to see if they carry the gene for dyslexia, so they can be prepared if their child could have the disorder. It is also not uncommon to see a learning disability as a symptom to dyslexia as well. I thought that this article was the best article that I could find on the topic. It was very important to read because it gave me the knowledge that dyslexia is a area of the brain that causes the disorder and that it is not a vision problem. All other articles that I found had said that they were not sure as to what caused the disorder, and that it might be both. I am really happy with my research after finding this article, and also with the previous articles because they gave me a foundation of the disorder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia
This article gave me general knowledge about the dyslexia disorder.
http://www.medicinenet.com/dyslexia/article.htm
This article was helpful because it helped me identify certain symptoms of dyslexia.
This article was helpful because it gave me the information that the disorder is caused by a malfunction on the brain that interprets language and not a vision problem.
A topic that really sparked my interest both in previous class discussions and in the reading of this chapter is synesthesia. As an individual who doesn’t have synesthesia, it’s so strange to try to comprehend what it would be like to experience the world from that lens. I’d never bee able to wrap my mind around it and was hoping that through a little research I could find some information that would grant me a little more understanding.
Synesthesia is a rare condition, however there seems to be some disagreement on how rare. The most frequent number of cases I came across was 1 in 27 people and the most infrequent was up to 1 in 100,000. It seems that some of the more infrequent numbers are more likely to be accurate however. It’s also possible that not all cases are reported, as many people are ridiculed when they’re younger and trying to explain what they were experiencing.
Synesthesia causes people to experience sensations in other ways than what the experience should be directly stimulating. For example, every time they see the number 7 they may see it in a specific color. Another example is whenever they see the color blue, they may literally taste a specific food on their tongue. The most common believed form is colored hearing, where different sounds are simultaneously seen as colors within the mind’s eye.
Some people with the condition report most often not having their lives significantly interfered by their experiences. However some people did report that there are certain circumstances where their synesthetic experience does affect how they respond to the circumstance. A couple examples were if the color of a plate food is being served on triggers a bad taste in the mouth the food is more difficult to enjoy no matter how good it is, or if the sound of someone’s name triggers a bad smell or taste the person with that name is more difficult to like.
There are a few traits that seem to be present in a lot of synesthetes, such as being female or being left-handed. It does also seem to run in families. Scientists are still trying to learn a lot about this condition, though, and there is much more to learn.
There appears to be a difference in the brains of some people with synesthesia. There’s a possibility there is some cross wiring that may contribute to these individual’s different experiences. The limbic system may also be involved in the phenomenon due to activity that shows up in the brain during synesthetic experiences.
I’ll be interested to see where scientists take this research in the future. It’s such an interesting condition and I believe many people would be intersted in more specific information on what causes it.
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/syne.html
I really liked this site because it contributed the most to actually beginning to wrap my mind around the condition and understand the experiences. The information was worded in a very understandable manner and it also contained an abundance of information on the topic.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/03/12/174132392/synesthetes-really-can-taste-the-rainbow
I chose this site because it gave me an interesting perspective directly from someone who had synesthesia. It helped me to apply that perspective to information about the condition as I was reading and writing about it.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar01/synesthesia.aspx
This site was helpful because it helped support some of the other information I had read and it expanded on some of it. It had very statistics and explanations on what we know about synesthesia and what science is trying to accomplish.
My topic is mental imagery while reading. This topic relates to chapter ten because chapter ten was about mental representation of knowledge. I am interested in this topic because I want to know how and why we form mental images in response to words.
Mental imagery is a perceptual experience that occurs without the presence of any perceptual stimuli. Mental imagery is intentional meaning that the imagery is of, about, or directed at something. This perceptual experience is a form of mental representation. There are many types of mental imagery but mental images are typically discussed most often. Imagery experiences are believed to be central to memory, motivation, visuo-spatial reasoning, and creative thoughts. There is still great debate about whether mental images are actually an experience or just a representation.
Mental images are an automatic process that occurs while reading. Reading, mental images help clarify information, increase understanding, and help with encoding of the information from the text. Mental images involve all of the five senses and the brain can actually be tricked into thinking it has experienced something that the reader has only experienced through text. The same areas of the brain that would be activated in vivo are activated while reading. For example, reading about the scent of a flower would activate the same area of the brain as if one actually smelled a flower. Different types of reading activate different parts of the brain depending on the content. Reading textbooks without a lot of rich, sensory content activates the brain differently from a fiction, adventure novel.
Not all people experience great mental images while reading and therefore, do not enjoy reading quite as much; however, people can be trained to have better mental images while reading. Brain structured can actually be altered with this training. For example, after six months of a daily reading program, the volume of white matter in the brain increased. To improve mental imagery, it is helpful to close one’s eyes and visualize the reading by thinking about all five of the senses, what do you see, feel, smell, etc. Also, think about how the mental images compare to a television show. Sometimes it is helpful to read a book and then watch the movie of the book and observe the differences in mental images compared to the director’s vision. Drawing a scene from the book after reading can also be helpful.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/ This source talked about what mental imagery is and ongoing debates about mental imagery over the centuries.
http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/your-brain-on-books-10-things-that-happen-to-our-minds-when-we-read/ This source discussed how mental imagery happens while we read.
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/mind-pictures-strategies-that-792.html?tab=4 This source provided strategies to increase mental imagery while reading.
1a) State what your topic is.
This week I decided to research the neuroscience of cognitive maps
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
This chapter talked about cognitive maps, in reference to the visual representation of knowledge, and it also focused a lot on cognitive neuroscience.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I'm interested in this topic because cognitive maps have been studied for a very long time, but they have only been studied using experiments using reaction times and number of errors, but neuroscience allows for the unique opportunity of seeing what a cognitive map actually is, in relation to the brain.
2) In the brain, every structure has it's own specific set of functions. The neurons within those structures tend to have their own specific functions as well. When considering cognitive maps, it would appear that there are four main types of neurons that are responsible: place cells, boundary cells, head-direction cells, and grid cells. Place cells are were discovered in the 1970s, and much research has been done on them, specifically in rats. These neurons fire in response to a specific location. Researchers recorded the neurological activity of a rat as it walked through a maze, and they found that certain neurons would continually fire at particular locations, and the neurons next to them would fire in geographically close locations. Because of this, it was initially speculated that the interactions of large numbers of place cells in the hippocampus would make up a cognitive map, and there would be a distinct neurological basis for them. As the hippocampus is the part of the brain that had been known to be fundamental for memory formation, this made a lot of sense, and is still somewhat the theory used, except now we know of additional neurons that feed input into the system. Border cells, or boundary cells, were initially thought to be place cells when they were discovered, except additional tests found that they fired when the rat was in the same proportionate place (say, the northeast corner) of a maze that had been doubled in size. These cells fire in response to an external boundary at a particular distance from the individual, and are also found in the hippocampus. Head direction cells are found in multiple locations in the brain and act as the compass of the brain. These cell's activation is governed by directional location on the horizontal plane, i.e. some fire only when an individual is facing southwest. Each cell only fires when facing one particular direction. Unlike a compass, these cells are not controlled by the Earth's geomagnetic field, but rather respond to visual input and motion cues, such as those from the vestibular system. Grid cells are significantly more confusing. They are found in the entorhinal cortex, which is the place of communication between the cortex and the hippocampus. These act somewhat like place cells, except that instead of having a single firing field, that is a particular spot that they fire, they have a conglomerate of firing fields that form a hexagonal pattern. All grid cells in the entorhinal cortex have the same scale and orientation, but differ in placement. The firing of grid cells is determined by distance and direction of movement. These are the basics of grid cells, boundary cells, head direction cells and place cells. Together, these four types of cells, and potentially others, are the units responsible for the construction of cognitive maps.
3)
http://blog.brainfacts.org/2013/10/place-cells-remapping-and-memory/
This link discussed place cells, much more in depth than I talked about in this post
http://blog.brainfacts.org/2013/08/human-grid-cells/
This link discussed grid cells
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Head_direction_cells
This link explained head direction cells
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_cell
This link gave a basic overview of boundary cells
The topic that I chose to research more this week was synesthesia. This topic relates to the chapter because it was discussed within it and even got its own entire section. I was interested in this topic because the concept of it sounded so foreign to me. I have never experienced the phenomenon of synesthesia and can't even imagine what it might be like. This made me want to learn more about the subject and how such a thing has been studied over time.
Synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon that involves sensations being produced at a point other than the point of stimulation. It is a blending of two or more senses. This can involve examples such as tasting a color, or a sound producing a visual sensation of a certain color. These sensations differ from those caused by hallucinations in that synesthetic sensations are consistent across time and different experiences. They are also considered to be real by the person experiencing them, as opposed to being within the "mind's eye". Another example of what a synesthetic person might see involves a blue number 5. The person with synesthesia might relate the number 5 to being green in color whenever they see it. Interestingly, the synesthetic person would report seeing this number as both blue, the color it is printed in, and green, the color their synesthesia shows. People with synesthesia tend to have very good memories as association of multiple variables, such as numbers corresponding with certain colors, makes remembering a sequence easier.
There are many different forms of synesthesia. One of these is grapheme-color. It involves the coloring of numbers or letters. The associated colors differ from person to person but remain consistent over time. It is one of the most common forms of the phenomenon and most examples that I have seen shown involved it.
Another form is chromesthesia. This is also a common form of synesthesia. It involves a person associating certain sounds with certain colors. This can be caused by everyday sounds, such as a car horn, or it can involve musical notes/keys.
A third form of synesthesia is spacial sequence synesthesia. It involves a person seeing numerical sequences as points in space. This means that a certain number such as 1 may be percieved as being close and 6 as being much farther away, but somehow 7 being closer than 6 and farther than 1. It was one of the more interesting and confusing forms that I read about.
A fourth form is the number form. This involves a mental map of numbers, which automatically and involuntarily appears whenever someone who experiences number-forms thinks of numbers. This means that the sequence of 1-10 may form a very specific map within a person's mind, as opposed to being straight like most people might imagine.
The fifth primary form of synesthesia is mirror-touch synesthesia. It is one of the rarer forms of the phenomenon. It involves a person feeling the same sensation that another person feels. This means that a person with mirror-touch synesthesia would feel a poke on the arm in the same place that they saw another person being poked at. This form of synesthesia tends to be accompanied by a stronger sense of empathy, as one might imagine considering they "share" physical sensations with other people.
Overall, for all forms of synesthesia, the estimated occurrence of synesthesia ranges from rarer than 1 in 20,000 to as prevalent as 1 in 200. The condition can be hard to track, as most people who experience it don't consider it to be strange. It is a normal part of everyday life to them and they therefore believe it to be common in the general populus. As such, many cases are unreported.
My whole time researching this subject was really interesting. There is a ton more stuff that I could write about, including first-hand accounts of experiencing the phenomenon. As a whole, I would say that this is one of the more interesting topics I have read and researched throughout the semester, as even though I have looked into it further, I can't imagine what it must be like to experience it even after reading people describe it.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-synesthesia/
This was a good overview article that gave me the prevalence of the condition, as well as examples of the condition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
This was the backbone of my research, with it being where I got the information for the different forms of synesthesia.
http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/synesthesia.html
This was a short resource that helped me get a definition for the condition, along with the wikipedia article. It also has the first-hand accounts that I mentioned, which were really interesting to read.
1a) State what your topic is.
Synesthesia.
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
Synesthesia has been a topic of great discussion in a few of our classes and the book has briefly spoken about this rare phenomenon. Synesthesia directly relates to the chapter because it deals with the sound of colors and the visual representation other senses can have on people with synesthesia.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
Like many others people, after I first learned about synesthesia I was immediately intrigued in how this rare condition works and who it affects. Throughout the semester in this class and as well as other psychology classes I have taken we have discussed many rare abilities or mutations that occur within the human genome that allow certain people to possess extraordinary abilities. Synesthesia to me is one of those extraordinary abilities that seems like something out of a science fiction novel and honestly I am a little envious of those who have it. While it may seem like a burden to some of those who have synesthesia I think it would be an interesting experience to know what it feels like for at least a day.
2)
Synesthesia is a condition in which sensations from one perceptual modality are experienced in another modality. In other words those individuals with synesthesia my taste shapes, see sounds or also feel colors. While some people experience synesthesia on a very subtle and small level there are those who are exceptionally synesthetic. These exception synesthetes experience a cross talk or a union of their sensory experiences, many vary in awareness of their synesthetic perceptions. The most common form of synesthesia is grapheme color synesthesia, with this form individual letters of the alphabet and numbers are shaded with a color. Pat Duffy, a women with grapheme color synesthesia recalls when she first learned she had the ability, "I realized that to make an R all I had to do was first write a P and draw a line down from its loop. And I was so surprised that I could turn a yellow letter into an orange letter just by adding a line." Many individuals with this form of synesthesia report this ability helped them learn how to spell because they knew which color each letter is. Another very common form of synesthesia chromesthesia, this form associates sounds with colors. For some, everyday sounds can trigger seeing/hearing colors such as doors opening, cars honking, or people talking. For others, colors are triggered when musical notes or keys are being played. People with synesthesia related to music may also have perfect pitch because their ability to see/hear colors aids them in identifying notes or keys. Some notable musicians who have this ability are Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Wonder, Kanye West, Robert Plant and Billy Joel among others.
While some embrace their ability psychological research has demonstrated that synesthetic experiences can have measurable behavioral consequences. Some synesthetes report experiencing sensory overload, becoming exhausted from so much stimulation. But usually the condition is not a problem in fact most synesthetes treasure what they consider a gift. The origin of synesthesia is still unknown but many researchers believe it is due to a cross wiring within the brain. The number of people with synesthesia range from 1 in 200 to 1 in 100,000. There are probably many people who have the condition but do not realize what it is. The people with synesthesia tend to be women, in the U.S. studies show that three times as many women as men have synesthesia; in the U.K., eight times as many women have been reported to have it. Synesthetes also tend to be more left-handed and neurologically “normal”; that is to say they are usually of average or possibly above average intelligence. While this condition is a gift to most who possess it, the ability is still a mystery to many researchers but could one day help us to understand more about consciousness.
3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
This site was helpful because it gave so much information about all the different forms of synesthesia and explained them all in great detail.
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/syne.html
This site explained who in the population has synesthesia and also talks about the biological basis of the ability.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEqmNX8uKlA
This is a great video that helps to explain synesthesia in a more visually appealing way.
The topic I have chosen to look into is synesthesia. Synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon where there is stimulation to a sensory or cognitive pathway which leads to experiences of another sensory or cognitive pathway. The estimated numbers with people who have Synesthesia range from 1 in 200 to 1 in 100,000. Grapheme is one type of synesthesia that deals with color. People may see different numbers or letters as a color. Smell, colors, and taste senses can also occur in a person who has this ability. Researchers have noticed a difference in the patterns of brain activation with people who have synesthesia. Some people report seen their vowels are more brightly colored than consonants, but others report the opposite.
People are usually unaware that their experiences are different from others until they hear that other people cannot see what they see or hear. This diagnosis can be involuntary, projected, and emotional. Studies have shown that people who are more likely to get it are: women, left handed people, neurologically normal (intelligence), and appears to be genetic.
Some ways that people with synesthesia have used their ability to an advantage is by how they can remember names, numbers, mental math, visual arts, music, and theater.
There was a person named Solomon Shereshevsky who experienced this with all five senses. Colors and movement can lead to hearing musical tones. This is called Chromesthesia.
I found a website where apparently you are able to register to find out if you have synesthesia which is interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
what synesthesia is and some of the different types of synesthesia
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/syne.html
talked about who is more likely to get synesthesia
http://www.synesthete.org/
talked more about what synesthesia is and you can register at this website to see if you have synesthesia
1.A. Visualization strategies and learning disorders.
B. This topic relates to the chapter since it largely focuses on imagining or visualizing information that is not actually present and how that relates to our interpretations of actual present stimuli.
C. I’m interested in this topic since it relates to how we perceive others in a sense. Those with learning disorders are usually characterized as learning disabled. I feel that many would agree that in the mainstream educational systems of our society they really are disabled or at the very least disadvantaged. Cognitive science may have an opportunity to help us view them as just different however.
My first source is one such example of this. The authors of this article describe the learning disordered children as having low average scores on spatial visualization and object rotation tasks. These average scores, though somewhat low, show that in some ways learning disordered individuals are not vastly inferior to their non learning disordered counterparts. It may even be that if different teaching methods were in place within our educational system that we would not see such large discrepancies between the two groups.
In my second source they analyzed a reading strategy that helps demonstrate this point. Learning disordered students were taught a cognitive mapping strategy meant to help aid in providing a mental/visual structure to readings. It did significantly improve reading comprehension of the children. This demonstrates that it is possible that if a skill such as reading were taught in a different manner we would see some students performing better than they were previously. One should not be quick to assume that this strategy would work for everyone however.
In my third source, the author provides an overview of strategies of learning related to knowledge visualization. For students who are not learning disordered, cognitive mapping strategies likely will not be as effective according to the author. Similarly those with high levels of knowledge in a content area will not find cognitive mapping useful relative to those less familiar with the content area. It is likely that educators should incorporate teaching multiple types of learning strategies rather than a single strategy that works for the highest percentage of their students.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CFwQFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Feujournal.org%2Findex.php%2Fesj%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F433%2F582&ei=kIo9U_-dAvO02wW41oDICw&usg=AFQjCNG3cL7TM-JCFUxxZPVCtKmxVWqRrA&sig2=URNLYi4b2tODX5n6-J8aJg this first source allowed me to establish that there may be some mental operations that learning disabled children are not of below average skill level in.
http://www.isle.org/~langley/papers/icarus.cogmod07.pdf With this source I established that for some children, adding a visual structure to abstract concepts could enhance learning.
https://www.ed.psu.edu/educ/news/news-items-oct-dec-2011/graphic-organizers-aid-students-with-learning-disabilities.html I wanted to include this last source because I wanted to temper the previous paragraph and make the point that adding a visual structure to reading would likely not work in just any circumstance.
This week I decided to look at synesthesia. This is something that was covered some in the chapter that we read for this week, but I wanted to learn more about it and about the lives of people who have it.
Synesthesia is a condition in which one sensation is expressed through another sensation's pathway and modality. This may mean that someone can taste words, feel sounds, or that letters and numbers may have a specific color. The most common type of synesthesia is colored hearing. This means that sounds, voices, and music all have distinct colors that are seen in the mind. Most synesthetes greatly appreciate their gift and would not want to give it up.
It is thought to be caused by an excess of myelin in the neural connections of the brain. There is also thought to be a genetic component, with synesthesia tending to run in families. Women are also more likely to have synesthesia than men.
Synesthesia is involuntary, and for a while people with synesthesia don't realize that they are different. They assume that everyone has the abilities they have. For some people, sharing their experience at a young age can result on being picked on, causing them not to disclose their condition to others later in life.
There are many different types of synesthesia, but several common ones include grapheme-color, chromesthesia, and auditory-tactile. Grapheme-color synesthesia occurs when letters or numbers have a color. Research has shown that, while individual differences do occur, most synesthetes tend to see letters in similar colors.
Chromesthesia is where sounds have a color. These can be musical notes and words, but can also be the sounds of birds chirping and doors shutting. People with this type of synesthesia tend to have perfect pitch because of the specific colors and images given to each music note.
Auditory-tactile synesthesia occurs when a sound causes a sensation on a specific part of the body. A guitar may cause a feeling on the back of the knee, for example. This is one of the rarest forms and can occur from birth or develop later on in life.
Synesthesia is not included in the DSM-IV because it does not normally interfere with functioning. Test-retest reliability is the easiest way to prove that someone is a synesthete, with synesthetes having a 90% reliability rate. People without synesthesia tend to have a 30-40% reliability rate.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar01/synesthesia.aspx
This article discusses the experiences that people with synesthesia have, as well as the genetic factors and rates with men and women. It also discusses the issues synesthetes may encounter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
This article discusses the different types of synesthesia, as well as the diagnostics and characteristics of synesthesia.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/03/12/174132392/synesthetes-really-can-taste-the-rainbow
This article also discusses the experiences of people with synesthesia. It also talks about the history of it and the way that those who have synesthesia use it to their advantage.
1a. My topic for this week is synesthesia.
1b. This topic relates to this chapter because this condition involves a mixing of the senses that sometimes involves a change in visual representations of certain things. The book has a whole section dedicated to this condition.
1c. I am interested in synesthesia because it is a very interesting condition. The book does not elaborate on the mechanisms that underlie this intriguing condition so I wanted to do some additional research to see if I could find out why some people have it.
2. Synesthesia is a condition in where people have a crossing of their senses that create peculiar perceptions, such as seeing numbers as colors. Most often people with this condition cross just two of their senses, like visual information and audio information, but there has been reports of a man who has all five of senses crossed. One of the most common ways people experience synesthesia is called grapheme-color and this is where people see letters and numbers as tinges of color. Another common form of this condition is called chromesthesia, and this is where people hear sounds as colors. This condition is involuntary and automatic. Another very interesting type of this condition is seeing numbers or letters as having feminine or masculine characteristics. People with this condition usually do not find this condition to be troublesome and many report it to be a pleasant experience, if not just neutral. The mechanism behind synesthesia is presumed to be increased cross talk between the brain areas of the brain that contribute to the senses involved. In the brain when we experience sensation there is usually a mix of excitation and inhibition of the brain structures, synesthetes may not experience as much inhibition which may help to explain why their senses seem to meld into each other. It is said that some psychedelic drugs may induce this affect in non-synesthetic brains. It is estimated that 1 in 2000 people may have some form of this condition. The mechanisms behind this condition are still largely unknown today, but researchers have put out some tentative guesses. One proposed theory is that synesthesia is an X linked trait, although this has been currently debunked by the fact that identical twins shared no concordance with this condition. More recently research has focused on imaging techniques using MRIs of the gray matter of the brain in patients who experience grapheme-color synesthesia. It was found that the posterior parietal lobe of these patients shared a common pattern of activation. But, despite these findings there is nothing concrete that suggests a definitive mechanism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
This website was very helpful in that it outlined all the different forms of this condition and gave many examples. It also discussed a little bit about some of the research that tried to identify the mechanisms.
http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/news/what-is-synesthesia#.Uz2NmPldWF8
This website was very helpful in that it included some current research and ideas behind the mechanisms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRbebvoYqI
This video was very informative. It fortified what the other two articles had said and gave some great visual examples.
My topic for this week’s blog is synesthesia. Synesthesia is being able to experience a sensation through one perceptual modality such as vision and also experience it though sound.. Synesthesia is neat because it looks at how individuals’ senses are mixed together. I really thought this was neat because it looks into how our senses are overlapped and how we can hear or see different things in on situation and later on something that we heard before that we didn’t know can trigger that sensation again. Not everyone may experience this, but researchers believe synesthesia is in connection with the physical characteristics of the natural world. If objects are alike, physically, then you are more likely to experience synesthesia. When you first read about this at least when I did I thought that I may have this but, synesthesia is biological and automatically unlearned. It is distinct from hallucinations and the condition runs in families, being more common among women. Researchers have determined that synesthesia is common among one in two thousand people. People experiencing sensory overload become exhausted from so much brain stimulation that these individuals tend to experience synesthesia. People with synesthesia think in a different way. For example, a person with synesthesia my put a number with a color or even put a color with a day of the week. These individuals may also visualize a particular month with a particular location like a haunted house for Halloween. Individuals can determine if they may have the condition of synesthesia by taking a Synesthesia Battery Test. Overall, synesthesia is where people have a sensory laps that affect their senses. Brains of synesthetes appear to be different. Neural connections between sensory parts of the brain have more of a myelinated sheath surrounding their neurons.
http://www.synesthete.org/
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/03/12/174132392/synesthetes-really-can-taste-the-rainbow
http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar01/synesthesia.aspx