Topics in the News?
What I would like you to do is to start applying what we are learning in class to real world matters. Some might ask, "What good is learning psychology if we can't apply it to real world matters?" So that is what we are going to do with this topical blog assignment.
What I would like you to do is to either go to NPR (http://www.npr.org/ ), the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ ) or any news site listed at the bottom of this page (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ listed in their news sources) and read, watch, or listen to something that is interesting to you and relates to what we have been learning in the class.
Please respond the blog by BRIEFLY telling us in essay format:
What your topic is and what the piece you chose was. Why you picked it (what made it interesting for you) and what did you expect to see. What did you find most interesting about the piece
Next discuss IN DETAIL how it relates to the class using terms, terminology, and concepts that we have learned so far in class. Include definitions.
Please make sure you use the terms, terminology and concepts you have learned so far in the class. It should be apparent from reading your post that you are a college student well underway in a course in psychology.
Include the URL in your post.
Make a list of key terms and concepts you used in your post.
Let me know if you have any questions.
--Dr. M
I decided to do my topic on blindness and an article I found on recognizing faces with sound rather than sight. I picked this article because I wanted to find something that I could directly relate to sensation and perception. When I saw an article with the title, “Blind From Birth, But Able to Use Sound to ‘See’ Faces,” I had to check it out. I guess I expected for the blind person to listen to the person’s voice but what they did was use a headset fitted with a small camera to scan various shapes, and had the person listen to a mix of corresponding sounds. Gradually, they learned to associate a specific pattern of sound interplay with a specific contour. I honestly thought all of it was interesting. It’s interesting that the blind participants in this study could actually identify a face by just listening to simple sounds.
This relates to our class because blindness can happen from many causes. We’ve talked about agnosia, which is one’s visual system and the lack of ability to recognize a person by their face. This relates to the article because people with agnosia would probably benefit from this study learning how to identify someone with just a sound. We have also talked about amblyopia, which is when a person has a problem between the brain and eye working together which creates a problem with vision. The vision in one eye is reduced because the eye and brain are not working properly together like they should. The eye itself looks normal, but it is not being used normally because the brain favors one eye. We’ve also talked about esotropia, which is a binocular vision disorder. This is when the eye deviates inward causing trouble with vision. These could all be related to the article since the article was about helping people with vision disorders learn to identify faces without actual vision.
With practice, the participants were able to interpret more complex sound patterns that revealed more complicated shapes. Eventually they could identify a face by listening to any sounds. The Georgetown scientists did this by putting the participants in a brain scanner. The idea was to watch the participant’s brain while they were using sounds to recognize a simplified drawing of a face. The team compared brain scans from six blind people with the scans from 10 sighted people who were looking at the face drawings with their own eyes. The results ended up almost identical. In both groups, the image caused lots of activity in the left fusiform face area, the region of the brain that always lights up when you see a face. (This was also talked about from the textbook). In sighted people, the fusiform face area is connected to the brain’s visual system. But in blind people it appears to be wired to circuits that process sounds.
URL: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/11/21/365486921/blind-from-birth-but-able-to-use-sound-to-see-faces
Terms: Sensation, perception, blindness, sight, shapes, contour, agnosia, visual system, amblyopia, brain, eye, esotropia, binocular vision disorder, deviates, interpret, complex sound patterns, sounds, brain scanner, fusiform face area.
For this assignment I decided to cover a topic that is currently in the news, however, I believe it should be in the news more than it currently is. This may be hard to relate to sensation and perception in certain ways but I am going to do my best. The topic I am choosing to cover is water scarcity. It is a topic I am extremely interested in and one that I am covering in my capstone course. We have learned a lot about the water issues an Africa and other countries, along with the water issues taking place right here in America. I never thought about water as something of a shortage until I started to research it and discover how serious this issue truly is.
Although water is seemingly abundant, the issue of water scarcity becomes apparent when we realize that only 3% of water on earth is freshwater. Furthermore, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, most of that three percent is inaccessible, leaving us with only 0.3 percent of our freshwater being available for human use. With this staggering realization, it becomes obvious that water, our most vital resource, is not as abundant as we once believed it to be. To ensure that we will have enough water for ourselves and future generations to come, it is vital to recognize the importance of water conservation. How exactly is the freshwater that we have unusable?? Well most of the drinking water that we receive especially here in Iowa comes from group wells. This is dangerous to our health in the aspect of chemicals that are being found in this water. Iowa as a large farm land is known for producing crops; in order to produce healthy crops we use an abundance of fertilizers. Most of these fertilizers contain nitrogen which makes its way into the ground and either runs off with rain into our water ways, or is soaked into the ground and into our wells the nitrogen then when not broken down correctly forms into nitrate which is extremely damaging to our bodies.
States such as California are seeing it much worse than us in Iowa; we may be polluting our own freshwater. However, they don't have fresh water to pollute, California is predicted to be completely out of freshwater in 3 to 4 years. This is such a huge deal, and something that will impact us all greatly, yet none of us seem to worry of find the time to conserve water. I can relate this to sensation and perception in a few different manners. Firstly, in this course we learn of all of the different processes our body goes through in order to do amazing things such as use our senses. We have the power to do so many different things with our bodies however we don't often realize that 90% of our entire body is made up of water. We need water to survive and to function; so although we have amazing visual systems, and in the course we learn of the brains function and how complex our systems are none of this would be possible without sufficient water. Secondly, the toxins that go into our water can have an negative impact on our health. Certain toxic gases that are being released into our drinking water, such as nitrates, can cause loss of bodily functions that we learn about in this course such as the power of sight.
There are solutions being worked in to help our water crises; desalination is a huge one. If we were able to properly turn salt water into drinking water without damaging the environment or using excessive amounts of energy we may be able to temporarily fix our water shortage. However, water conservation is so important and that is something all of us can have a say in. On average each american uses 100 gallons of water per day. This can be reduced dramatically by shorter showers, using less electricity, flushing toilets less, checking for leaks among other things.
http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/scarcity.shtml
http://thewaterproject.org/water_scarcity
Terms: sensation, perception, hearing, senses, visual system, brain function.
I decided that for my article I would choose a article called Sense of Touch can Help Hearing, Study Says. I decided to do my blog on this article because I have found myself very interested in the section of hearing and those who suffer from a hearing loss. So when I saw this article about hearing and touch I thought this would be a very interesting topic for me to look into further. From reading this article I expected that one would be able to “hear” the sound through the feel of the “touch” of the vibrations. What this study looked into was they wanted to see whether hearing could also be influenced by our sense of touch as it fits with our sense of sight. Bryan Gick and Donald Derrick looked into testing people’s ability to tell the difference between sounds like “Pa” which require a burst of air from the mouth form sounds like “ba” which don’t. The thing that I found particularly interesting from this particular article was a comment made by Gick. “ We’re whole-body perceiving machines. We just take all of the information that comes at us in our environment and merge it into a percept of something that happened in the world.” To me this was very interesting and something that from this class I have learned and believed to be true. We often are able to understand information when we are missing a sense as our brains are wired from birth to incorporate information from other senses to perceive that of which we are actually encountering.
This relates back to our class as we looked into those who suffer from a hearing loss. As we have mentioned before roughly 30 million Americans suffer from some form of a hearing impairment. Hearing can be impaired by damage to any of the structures along the chain of auditory processing from the outer ear all the way up to the auditory ear canal which inhibits the ability of sound waves to exert pressure on the tympanic membrane. Another type of hearing impairment conductive hearing loss occurs when the middle-ear bone lose their ability to freely conduct vibrations from the tympanic membrane to the oval window. A more serious type of conductive loss otosclerosis is cause by abnormal growth of the middle- ear bones most typically around the oval window next to the stapes. As there are many different forms of hearing loss that we have talked about within this class we have also talked about some of the options that these folks have who suffer from this disability as far as surgery to implant a cochlear implant, hearing aids, removing wax, but there are still many other options that have not fully been thought of or developed for these individuals to use within their course of treatments.
As I looked at in another topical blog there are starting to be other types of treatment for these folks who suffer from a hearing loss. There are often times that most people just jump to the conclusion that the individual will need surgery to “hear” and communicate again. Well this may not totally be the case cause according to my earlier to a ted talk that I watched about hearing the world around you through the vibrations through a vest that one wears under their clothing. This to is another way that we would be able to “touch” the sound by using our touch receptors in the part of our body is our back and stomachs. This being said it also then relates back to this article by looking at the puffs of air that is blown on the neck to understand the perceived sound that the individual is “hearing.” I personally think that with the research shown that there are still many different options that are yet to be discovered by scientists in the fact that relates to our brain understanding information that may not be directly related back to the direct sense that it belongs to but in the fact that our brain is able to wire the information that is received and then transfer the information and relay the information to the “right” sense that the information currently belongs to.
URL: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120873368
Terms: outer ear, conductive hearing loss, ear canal, tympanic membrane, otosclerosis, oval window, middle-ear bone, cochlear implant, hearing aids, touch, sound, perception, sensation, senses, hearing loss, impaired, auditory processing, auditory canal, stapes, and hearing impairment.
I wanted to find an article that I could relate to human sensation in emotion as well as memory. The article that I found was called “Press Me! Buttons that Lie to You.” It covered placebo buttons which are literally buttons that serve to purpose and other items in the world that are similar in characteristics. These kinds of button are placed in highly populated areas and can be found at some cross walks and train stations. Other items that are similar to this are like the skype noise before it connects you to the person you try to call online. At initial glace I did not expect this article to relate too much to what I was looking for, but it was very interesting so I decided to read it anyway. What I found was with many of these buttons people report have lower stress after they have clicked it because they believe it will help them get to their destination sooner, or with the skype example it makes them believe that it is trying to connect them. When this happens hormones are released that signal to the brain that something has been done about the current situation and this helps them to relax. Also the person can relate other instances where they pushed a button, like an elevator, where the result was to get them to their desired destination. This gives the pedestrian the illusion of control and helps keep them calm. Also researchers found that if more than one person pushes the button this would create a sense of connectivity to the other around them letting them know that they also are in a hurry and wan to cross the sidewalk or board the train etc. The most interesting part was the conclusion with these buttons which was that people feel happier with the world around them, more in control of events and comforted by the apparent efficacy of their actions.
We already know from our chapter in class how certain things in our environment effect our mood and emotions and that hormones help regulate this. So when this article brought up how people relaxed more after pushing the button we can assume that this behavior was a result from a previously learned experience so they expected the same outcome as before. This helped motivate the action and gave them a false sense of control, which in most case is a good thing for these buttons otherwise if more people new that the buttons are not always real, then it could cause anger and aggression for some people. Overall a very interesting article that was easily relatable to past class discussions.
Terms: Emotion, motivation, noise, stress, hormones, illusion of control, behavior, aggression, efficacy
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150415-the-buttons-that-do-nothing
I chose an article from NPR about a man waiting to receive a hand transplant. This goes with the latest chapter about touch. This is a fairly new technology, and it is different from an organ transplant in a couple of ways. First it is visible where the others are not seen by the person receiving the organ. Second it is not a life threatening condition like a kidney or liver transplant.
Kevin Lopez was born without a fully developed right hand, he does not have fingers. There are many everyday activities that are trickier and some nearly impossible because of having only one hand with fingers. Lopez is an otherwise healthy twenty year old man.
There are risks, first any surgery is a risk. The need for very powerful anti-rejection drugs will be lifelong for Lopez. These drugs will not only keep his body from rejecting the hand, but also suppress his immune system. This will make him more vulnerable to serious issues like cancer, diabetes and other infections. In order to qualify for the transplant Lopez has been required to go through extensive physical and psychological testing to make sure he is healthy enough for the procedure. This testing has included interviews with Lopez’s family as well.
In regards to sensation and perception, first of all the visibility will be something that he will have to get used to, as well as relearning how to do activities with two hands. As we learned earlier the brain learns to make due when there are shortcomings in parts of our bodies. The neurons learn to re-route and having two hands might be very frustrating before it becomes “normal” and there is a possibility that he may not be able to every fully use that hand. The condition that the nerves are in and how they will respond is not known either. There is no guarantee that he will have the same feeling as he does with his natural left hand.
However surgeons say that most transplant hands end up working well and the risks are becoming less. Brain scans have been performed on Lopez and the surgeon says that these indicate a confidence that Lopez will be able to use the hand. The article didn’t state what the scans showed that gave the doctor such confidence, but I would assume it had to do with seeing activity in parts of the brain that would be responsible for the hand.
Once a donor is located the doctors will perform the surgery. Once the surgery is complete Lopez will have to begin a long and rigorous process of rehabilitation to learn to use the hand and relearn the activities with both hands. If the surgery does not work or the hand is rejected then Lopez will not only be without fingers but also a right hand.
The article was pretty brief. I will be curious to see what happens in this case. I thought about how different we are as individuals concerning touch. Today at work several people were complaining about the warmth of the office and a couple of others said they thought it was comfortable. Some people are ticklish; some people enjoy massage while others don’t enjoy a lot of touching at all. I would be interested to find out if there is difference in sensation between the two hands or is this something that simply occurs in the brain? Hopefully there will be a follow up in a couple of years.
Terms: brain, sensation, perception, neurons, nerves
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/04/06/395283912/will-a-transplanted-hand-feel-like-his-own-surgery-raises-questions
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/health/17voic.html
http://bramblitt.myshopify.com/
http://www.visualnews.com/2015/03/13/looking-at-these-colorful-detailed-paintings-youd-never-guess-that-the-artist-is-blind/
My article is from a news site that is not listed in the blog post, and I hope it will not take away any points. This article is about a man starting to paint after his went blind and found great success. He uses paint that dries quickly to draw the outline of his painting, using his sense of touch to check his outlines. Then, with practice, he was able to distinguish different colours from their textures. He lost his sight due to epilepsy. After going blind, he became more in touch with his senses and was able to predict his seizures. His paintings are known for bright and contrasting colours.
It is relatable to the class because the blind man uses his sensations other than sight to paint. Blindness and paintings do not usually go together, but since John was born with sight and went blind slowly, he had a fair understanding of what the world looks like. After losing his sight, he paints relying on primarily touch. When a person loses a sense, they will be able to pay more attention on their other senses, thus lower the threshold for responses. It was unclear how his epilepsy caused his blindness, since he became more aware of the changes in his senses before a seizure, he has been able to control the intensity of his seizure and weaned off his seizure medications. Thanks to the lower threshold for his tactile receptors to respond, he is able to tell colours from each other through the different textures they have. He is also able to mix different colours base on the different textures; in other words, he utilizes his SA I receptors to mix colours. Amazing? I thought so.
John reported that his family found it hard to understand the way he “sees” the world. People with sight might not be able to understand how a blind person can perceive the world, but the truth is that all persons can perceive the world in their own ways. As discussed in class, people who were born blind finds their way around the world primarily through sound and touch, and they may have a hard time adapting to a life in which they can see. This makes perfect sense because if anyone is given a new sense, it can be confusing due to all the new stimulations and information that they never learned how to process; thus, blind people who gained sight often go through their life with their eyes closed.
Back to this blind man who paints. He was born able to see but lost his sight during his late 20’s. His brain has learned to adapt into a world without sight. His sight is his primary sense as it allows him to paint. He is still able to see images in his head through his sense of touch. The plasticity of the brain makes it possible for him to learn to paint after he went blind. He visualizes his paintings through his touch. The synchronization of different senses enriches his world and allows him to create arts.
TERMS: sensation, perception, plasticity, tactile receptors, threshold, respond, SA I, synchronization.
The topic I chose was Neuroimaging. The article I chose was about a controversy on the cut off ages of when a woman should get mammograms. I thought this topic was interesting because it is an import topic for any woman to be informed of as it is directly connected their health. I expected to find that only women 50 and above should have mammograms done yearly. I was surprised to find that the women with dense breasts might be encouraged to get alternative tests done along with the traditional mammogram.
The article is specifically about how two major organizations are in the middle of a disagreement on when women should get yearly cancer screenings. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) says that women should get mammograms every other year after age 40, but the American Cancer Society says that yearly mammograms should start at age 40. The USPSTF claims that for women in their 40s, only one out of 1000 cancer deaths could be avoided. There are even some cons to testing, according to the USPSTF: 576 false positives, 58 unecesecary biopsies, and two over diagnosed tumors result from tests done on women in their 40s. This is the reasoning for their women in their 40s receiving mammograms. The ACS thinks that despite these stats all, it is worth the risk because screenings starting at 40 lower the cancer death rate.
I was surprised by two different things the article talked about. One thing was that the USPSTF claims there should be an upper cutoff date of 74 for women to receive yearly mammograms unless they are at an increased rate of cancer. They say this because there is not enough evidence to prove the need for women over 74 to get screened yearly. The other thing I was surprised by was that women with breast that are of higher density should get mammograms along with alternate testing methods. Those alternate methods are ultrasounds and MRI screenings. But there is one new method that is being researched before either group claim that it is will help find cancer in breasts. That method is tomosynthesis (aka 3D mammograms).
Terms: Neuroimaging, mammograms, dense breasts, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, USPSTF, American Cancer Society , false positives, biopsies, over diagnosed tumors, cancer death rate, higher density, ultrasounds, MRI screenings, tomosynthesis, 3D mammograms.
here's the link to the article.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/04/20/401006116/federal-panel-revisits-contested-recommendation-on-mammograms
We have studied many different concepts in Sensation and Perception and I found an article about one particular concept that we have studied in class. This article is called “Half of a Drug’s Power Comes From Thinking It Will Work.” This article focuses on the concept that we have just recently learned about in class called the placebo effect which is what I will be talking about in this paper. A placebo effect is a decreasing pain sensation when people think they’re taking an analgesic drug but actually are not. It could be a pill, a shot, or some other type of "fake" treatment. I picked this particular article because I have always been fascinated with the idea of a fake treatment to really cure someone. I have researched placebo effects before and I have come across some pretty interesting research that can relate to this article and its findings. I expected to see that the placebo given to the group would result in some sort of healing or positive regard.
This study surrounds the thought of curing a migraine by taking a drug to minimize the pain. When patients in the midst of a migraine attack took a dummy pill they thought was a widely used migraine drug, it reduced their pain roughly as much as when they took the real drug thinking it was a placebo. There was absolutely no difference between the pharmacology of the drug in reducing the pain and the placebo dressed up with a convincing word. The study is the latest in a series that's helping to decipher the mysteries of the placebo effect. The research is conducted at a newly established Program in Placebo Studies and Therapeutic Encounter at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and other Boston hospitals. There was a list of findings that I found to be quite interesting. The findings were as follows:
• No treatment: 15% increase in pain
• Known placebo: 26% decrease in pain
• Placebo labeled Maxalt: 25% decrease in pain
• Maxalt labeled as placebo: 36% decrease in pain
• Mystery Pill (Maxalt or placebo): 40% decrease in pain
• Known Maxalt: 40% decrease
The researchers were a little surprised at some parts in this study. The researchers wrote, “We were surprised that the efficacy of Maxalt mislabeled as placebo was not significantly better than the efficacy of placebo mislabeled as Maxalt.” What I found most interesting about this piece is that the placebo did not beat the real drug. The results actually showed the when taking the actual drug called Maxalt, patient’s results were almost four times better than the placebo pill.
This article and topic relates to sensation and perception because in psychology, placebo pills, shots, and other forms are used all of the time to try and cure or help an individual’s problem. Like I mentioned earlier, a placebo effect is a decreasing pain sensation when people think they’re taking an analgesic drug but actually are not. Endogenous opiates may be responsible for placebo effects. Endogenous opiates are chemicals released by the body that block the release or uptake of neurotransmitters necessary to transmit pain sensations to the brain. Another term that we have studied is analgesia. Analgesia is the act of decreasing the sensation of pain while one is still in the conscious experience. All of this relates to sensation and perception and builds off the placebo effect because we have the ability to trick our brains to do a lot of different things. It amazes me that we have the power to alter our conscious experiences in a way to take away a negative energy.
Terms: Placebo effect, sensation, perception, analgesia, endogenous opiate, neurotransmitters, conscious experience.
Link:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/01/10/261406721/half-a-drugs-power-comes-from-thinking-it-will-work
The article that I chose to look at today was a video about some chimpanzees crossing a street in Uganda. The cool thing about this video was that the chimps looked both ways before crossing the street, and the alpha male even waited for the baby chimp as he was cautiously crossing the road. The video was created out of survey to see how the chimps adapt to the new roads in Uganda. The researchers saw 122 chimps cross the highway where cars were routinely going up to 60 miles per hour. The article stated that 90% of the chimps looked both ways before crossing. The article also mentioned that these chimps are not as different from us as we once thought. They have distinct cultures, throw temper tantrums, and, probably the most interesting to me, do puzzles for fun.
This article caught my attention, from a sensation and perception point of view, as an example of vision use in other animals. We talked about peripheral vision and how we do not see objects in it, only motion. These chimps have obviously learned that instinctually and are using that knowledge to stay safe while crossing these dangerous roads. Another thing that we talked about is the ability to perceive motion and how depth perception plays a role in knowing what to do to react to that motion. These chimps understand that in order to stay safe they need to watch out for fast-moving piles of steel. Although it is not seen in this video, we can assume from the research that was explained in the article that these chimps have to use their depth perception to know, at least conceptually and instinctively, how fast the car is moving, where the car is at, and how safe it would be to cross the road at that particular time.
I find it fascinating to see different animals act in human ways. The way that the alpha male took care of the baby chimp was incredible to see. He not only waited to make sure that the young chimp crossed the road safely, he was also patient with the chimps cautious behavior. The alpha male understood that the young chimps actions were not only careful, but necessary. I think it is a direct tie to how humans act with their young children, for the most part. We are patient with young ones because we understand how scary and intimidating some actions, like crossing a busy street, are. We want to take the time to make sure that they learn how to look out for themselves.
Key terms: vision, peripheral vison, motion, depth perception, react
link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/18/chimps-look-both-ways_n_7088776.html?utm_hp_ref=science
The topic I chose was about the perceptual mind tricks people can use to distract you. The piece I chose discussed this topic at length, detailing the many methods a pickpocket uses to steal from an innocent victim. Titled How Pickpockets Trick Your Mind, this article by Caroline Williams interested me because I have had experience with pickpockets before. In my travels, I have visited a few places where it was strongly advised one keep an eye on their belongings. In fact, such people followed the small group I was in. We kept an eye on them, only to witness them stealing from someone else. I was not entirely sure what to expect in this article. I had always just assumed various distractions were used. I found it interesting that there were actual psychological facts used to make these distractions increasingly successful.
The first connection I found between the article and class centered around one of the many distraction techniques of groups of pickpockets. In this particular method, one pickpocket will bump into a victim. Then, another pickpocket will also bump into a victim and perhaps pick a fight with that victim. While all this is happening, a third pickpocket will descend and actually conduct the stealing and pass it off to a fourth group member who runs off with the loot. This use of multiple distractions relates to an attention concept from Chapter 7 called “attentional blink.” Attentional blink is when a person typically fails to detect a target stimulus, among a rapid string of distracting stimuli. In the case of the pickpocket tactic, the multiple bumps into the victim, along with the fight, act as distracting stimuli. Therefore, the act of theft would be the target stimulus, and go unnoticed. While inattention is useful for pickpockets, attention is also helpful. In areas with high amounts of this sort of activity, there are signs alerting bystanders to the danger of thievery. While meant to warn, these signs have a tendency to remind those being warned to check their person for any missing belonging. Pickpockets actually purposely congregate around these warnings and use them to find out where people keep their valuable items. When the victim is distracted once more with other events in the environment and experiencing inattentional blindness, the thief strikes.
Another concept discussed in the article was about the way pickpockets, or even street performers like magicians, move their hands and arms. If someone were to move their hand in an arc, this entices the viewer to use a eye tracking method called smooth pursuit. In smooth pursuit, the eye moves in a deliberate motion. On the other hand, if that same person were to move their hand in a straight line, the eye tracks the movement with a saccade. In a saccade, the eye tracks the motion from one point to another within a fraction of a second. During this time, visual acuity is actually reduced to a point of near blindness. This phenomenon is called saccadic suppression. With this knowledge, a pickpocket can use straight, quick motions to distract their intended victim in a way that is well suited to be effective.
While these are by no means the only tools in a pickpockets arsenal, they are very closely aligned with the science of sensation and perception. The knowledge of these methods can also be very useful for potential victims of pickpocketing. Research suggests that simply being aware of the theft tactics can alert you to potential signs of an imminent attack.
Terms: attentional blink; target stimulus; distracting stimuli; smooth pursuit; saccade; visual acuity; saccadic suppression; blindness; inattentional blindness; attention
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140629-how-pickpockets-trick-your-mind
My topic is about how parents need answers about youth sports concussions. I picked this topic because chapter 12 was focused on spatial orientation and the vestibular system. The vestibular organs that were discussed in this chapter related to the vestibular system that is our “6th sense.” Much of the time we forget about how much our vestibular system does until it stops working properly. Abnormal functions such as dizziness, vertigo, spatial disorientation, imbalance, blurred vision, and illusory self-motion is all presented when the vestibular system does not work properly. When I played sports in high school and in college I experienced concussions, these concussions provided all of those abnormalities mentioned in the previous sentence. And after reading that chapter, I also began to associate the same occurrences with the Meniere’s Syndrome. What I found most interesting is that information for concussions and Meniere’s Syndrome is findable but the impacts of the disease are not researched thoroughly enough to provide answers people need to feel comfortable in treating Meniere’s Syndrome or letting their child play high impact sports.
When it comes to adult traumatic brain injury and dementia risk, the NFL stated that it expects nearly a third of its retired players to develop long-term cognitive problems and predicted that the conditions are likely to emerge at “notably younger ages” compared to the general population. After doing research on Meniere’s Syndrome, concussions, and all those abnormalities mentioned previously, I have come to the conclusion that we do not know enough about those topics. We are so uninformed and unaware of the fundamental effects of these topics. Improving our understanding of the fundamental biology of concussions and Meniere’s Syndrome, and how factors like age, sex, and genetics influence concussion susceptibility and recovery will provide notable and useful information. We need to support research and the development of brain imaging techniques that shed some light on the pathology of brain injury and notable therapies.
It was a difficult decision for my parents to let me play high-impact sports in high school. When I told them I wanted to pursue football in college they were aware of the risks but were not informed on the impacts that these risk brought to the table. But with more research and sports surveillance, we can ensure that parents, coaches, policy makers and physicians have the information they need to make educated decisions to protect the long-term health of young athletes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-fillit-md/parents-need-answers-abou_b_6978970.html?utm_hp_ref=brain
Terms: vestibular organs, vestibular system, spatial disorientation, dizziness, vertigo, imbalance, Meniere’s Syndrome
In chapter 11 of the textbook we learned about how our brain perceives sounds through our auditory processing system, music in particular. Well the article I found discusses, a study that shows lifelong musical experience has an impact on the aging process. Also Ive done a topic write up about this, so its familiar and fits well with this.
Measuring the automatic brain responses of younger and older musicians and non-musicians to speech sounds, researchers in the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory discovered that older musicians had a distinct neural timing advantage to be the most interesting piece from the article. The older musicians outperformed their older non-musician counterparts, and were able to encoded the sound stimuli as quickly and accurately as the younger non-musicians, this says a lot about how our brain functions as we age. Training even late in life could improve speech processing in older adults and, as a result, improve their ability to communicate in complex, noisy acoustic environments, it also reduces memory and hearing loss.
In chapter 11 auditory perception was discussed as well, especially perception of speech. Speech begins very early in development, with infants gaining significant experience even before they are born. Perceiving musical sounds and speech sounds are related, that means greater experience with musical training can improve our ability to distinguish and perceive speech sounds throughout our lives. Musical pitch is one of the characteristics of musical notes, which are the sounds that make up melodies. Pitch is the psychological aspect of sound related mainly to the fundamental frequency. In order to understand musical pitch, we need to understand octave. An octave is the interval between two sound frequencies having a ratio of 2:1. When one of two periodic sounds is double the frequency of the other, those two sounds are one octave apart. Musical pitch is typically described as having two dimensions, the first being tone height-related to frequency, and tone chroma-related to the octave. Tone height is a sound quality whereby a sound is heard to be of higher or lower pitch. Tone height is monotonically related to frequency. Tone chroma is a sound quality shared by tones that have the same octave interval. These basic components of understanding the properties of musical sounds are related to understanding the basic components of perceiving speech sounds, as well.
Musicians are able to discern between varying notes and sounds due to their trained hearing and experience with sound perception. The analysis of speech spectrograms has found that phonetic segments overlap, a phoneme's sound can change depending on what phonemes precede and follow it-this is referred to as coarticulation, phonemes do not have a single, constant pronunciation, and a particular word is not pronounced the same way by specific individuals. For people to effectively communicate with each other, they need to be able to perceive and distinguish between varying sounds, pitches, tones, consonants and vowels. Musical training can improve and strengthen our ability to distinguish the subtle and numerous differences between all these sounds, thus allowing us to more effectively communicate with other individuals.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120130172402.htm
http://www.unb.ca/courses/dvoyer/3745/pdf/speech.pdf
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_%28music%29
Definitional stuff
Terms: speech sounds, neural timing, speech processing, acoustic, neural response, consonant, auditory perception, pitch, fundamental frequency, notes, spectrograms, phonetic segments, phonemes, coarticulation, pronunciation, vowels
I chose to write my blog post on the article entitled, “World’s quietest room, anechoic chamber in Minneapolis, Absorbs Sound,” found on the huffington post website. This article is about the quietest room in the world, located in Minneapolis. The room provides visitors with complete silence, but people cannot stand to stay there for longer than 45 minutes. The problem with this absolute silence is that even the slightest sound is amplified. When this happens, people become incredibly aware, even paranoid, about their surrounds; this includes the possibility of hallucinations. The room is so quiet, that a person is able to audibly hear their own heartbeat.
I picked this, because there have been times where I crave absolute silence, but I have never been able to find it anywhere except maybe for a few seconds at a time. I honestly had no idea what to expect from the article before I read it, because I didn't know that pure silence was so hard to attain that there could even be a world's quietest room. I found the part about possible hallucinations to be very interesting. I have a friend with schizophrenia who often has a hard time discerning what is real and imagined with her almost constant hallucinations. I know that it gets worse for her in situations where she is deprived of sensation, such as in very dark rooms, so I am curious as to how she would be able to handle the room. I asked her what she thought, and she told me she would probably begin to panic and want out within a couple of minutes.
The sound measurement of this room is -9 decibels. A decibel is a unit of measurement for the physical intensity of the sound. The typical quiet room is about 30 decibels, so one can understand how this quiet space would be so alarming. The attack, the start of a sound, is very alarming to those inside of this room because of the extreme change in decibel level. The intensity and amplitude of a sound determines the sound pressure. Intensity is the amount of sound in a unit and amplitude is the magnitude of the sound pressure.
To explore in depth the reasons for the hallucinations, the brain must psychologically acknowledge several other functions before the sound is recognized. First, the loudness must be assessed. Loudness is a result of the intensity of the sound wave. So the more intense the sine wave, then the louder the sound. A sine wave is a pure sound, which is rare in daily functions due to the disruption of other sounds. Therefore, because of the extreme quiet in the room, the sound is perceived as even louder.
Another reason for the alarming aspects of this quiet room, is because of the equal-loudness curves. The equal-loudness curve compares the perceived sound pressure (decibels) to the other loudness in the space. Due to the fact that the room has no other sound, there is nothing to compare the perceived sound to. This is related to the concept of audibility threshold, in which the lowest sound pressures are determined.
As humans, we constantly perceive sound. Even in a quiet room, we are exposed at least some decibel of sound. This is why I chose to write about this topic. The concept of a totally silent room is intriguing, so I thought it would be interesting to look at the initial processes involved with perceiving sound in a room of negative decibels. As it turns out, we struggle to accurately perceive sound when we have no other sound to compare with. I learned that even though many people claim to need an entirely quiet room, but it turns out that it is not as peaceful as it sounds.
Terms: decibels, intensity, attack, loudness, sine wave, amplitude, equal-loudness curve, audibility threshold.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/04/worlds-quietest-room-the-anechoic-chamber-minnesota-minneapolis_n_1403476.html?ref=culture
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/05/26/314621545/the-blind-woman-who-sees-rain-but-not-her-daughters-smile
The topic that caught my eye on this website was motion blindness and peripheral vision. This topic caught my eye after reading the “The Woman Who Could See Rain, but Not Her Daughters Face. There are many causes of peripheral vision loss and motion blindness. A common cause of loss of peripheral vision (also called a peripheral field defect) is optic nerve damage from glaucoma. Eye "strokes" (occlusions) that block normal blood flow to the eye's internal structures, including the optic nerve, also can lead to loss of peripheral vision. Finally, a stroke or injury also may damage portions of the brain where images are processed, leading to blind spots in the visual field. Some of the basic causes of peripheral vision loss include: Glaucoma, Retinitis pigmentosa, eye strokes or occlusions, detached retina, neurological damage such as from optic neuritis, compressed optic nerve head (papilledema), and concussions (head injuries). The book did not give other causes to this type of defect in the peripheral vision. The book had only mentioned Retinitis Pigmentosa which is a family of hereditary diseases by the progressive death of photoreceptors and degeneration of the pigment epithelium.
Surprisingly enough we all have low visual acuity (resolution) in parts of the visual field that are not at the center of gaze. We are not aware of this because we instinctively direct our center of gaze to where we are looking. The center of gaze, called the fovea, has a higher density of cones than anywhere else on the retina. In fact, at the fovea, there are no rods at all. The fovea evolved to have the highest possible visual acuity, and the cones are as small as they can possibly be and still function. Moreover, in the fovea, the retinal ganglion cells have smaller receptive fields, and in the periphery, they have much larger receptive fields. Interesting enough humans have the least amount of visual power in our peripheral vision system. The fact that our vision has the highest acuity in the center of gaze does not mean that our vision in the rest of the visual field is inferior; it’s simply used for different things. Foveal vision is used for scrutinizing highly detailed objects, whereas peripheral vision is used for organizing the broad spatial scene and for seeing large objects. Our foveal vision is optimized for fine details, and our peripheral vision is optimized for coarser information. I thought it was interesting to read about the tests people use to measure their peripheral vision.
Going back to the first paragraph, there are many defects of our peripheral vision system. Although there is no cure for these diseases/defects, there are ways to lessen the chances of developing them. Various doses of Vitamin A and E can alter the potential of effects of RP. Not only are their vitamins we can take, there are also many eye exercises we can do on our own. Many parents are presenting these exercises to their children. It not only helps prevent eye disorders, but it can strengthen their eye muscles and vision. Visual processing skills like tracking, eye teaming, and visual perception are developmental skills that all children need in addition to seeing clearly. If these skills don’t develop normally, children can struggle with demanding visual tasks like reading. Each year as print gets smaller, school performance drops, and as visual fatigue sets in, children become easily frustrated and distracted. All too often, these children appear to have a learning disability or attention problems when the real culprit is poor visual processing skills.
If I can educate myself and look for the warning signs in my children, I can perhaps alter what vision tests can be done to detect these disorders early enough for some kind of treatment.
References:
http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/peripheral-vision.htm
http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/ag.html
TERMS: peripheral vision, peripheral field defect, optic nerve tract, glaucoma, retinitis pigmentosa, eye strokes, occlusions, detached retina, optic neuritis, papilledema, fovea, rods, cones, ganglion cells, receptive fields, foveal vision, tracking, eye teaming, visual perception
1. For this blog, i went out on my own and find an article that was very much interesting to me personally. as you all might be aware of this, but some of you might not be, there's a trend going on via internet, this trend is called the #kyliejennerChallenge. for those of you who aren't familiar with it, at the end of last year the young lady surprised everyone with bigger, plumber lips, to some people, they said that she had some lip injections, to others they said she used some form of make up that just makes her lips bigger, but when she doesn't have make up, her lips are still plumbed. which most people don't understand. At the beginning of this week, that challenge started trending and basically some teens and young adults were a huge part of it (my friends even ). basically they wanted those lips that kylie jenner has, so what you have to do to get those lips is you get a glass bottle that fits your month and suck for awhile as hard as you can, when you take it off, you're supposed to have these full great looking lips. the result wasn't pretty because it ended up being harmful to those individuals, basically bruises around their mouth area and leaving scares around them. then recently i ran into this great article. this article was very interesting to me because is very much accurately true, every piece of it. As a black women in America, my beauty is always overlooked, not only just me but every black women in america, our beauty is always overlooked, we are told that our hair are too nappy, that our noses are too big, that we have big boots and big lips and those aren't socially acceptable. these features of ours were mocked not long ago, i would go back as early 1990's. we were made fun of every single day because of those features, but about five years ago, they weren't overlooked as much, you see non African descents women go under the knife to get those very features that we were created with and they get praises for them. what sadden me most is that, why is that i was born with these features and they are perceive as ugly, unwanted and unacceptably unappealing, but yet a white women, pays money to get them and suddenly they are beautiful, breath taking and Godly? back in the day as well, they used to have cartoons who would over exaggerate the features of black people, black face, doing their lips to be as big as a duck's lips etc. I found this article interesting because this article relates to me and the struggle i still face everyday of being a black woman in America, because of my skin, and the features that God blessed me with, i am not beautiful enough with those features, but as soon as someone like kylie jenner or anyone who's Caucasian goes and pays millions to get those features, they are praise, i think that it's a very ignorant thing, i think that it's unfair and inhuman.
I think this relates with our class in many ways, going back to the middle part of this blog, i stated that people perceive others differently. i think that perception of things in people's own reality has a lot to do with how they view the world. If i was back in Africa, or somewhere that i am not a minority at, my features, my skin and beauty would be praise, they would be appreciated and they would be notice in a great way not in a negative way. But because i am not, and i have in fact a minority here, they are not perceive that way. this goes back to the earlier chapters about your environment and upbringing in life, because you're used to seeing things a certain way, you happen to have your brain wire in a specific way, when someone is blind completely, they are used to the sensation of objects, they have ways to go before the could adjust and find a balance way of understanding and perceiving the new information that they have access to now. this would relate to how people who are brought differently in the world, they perceive people like me to be less than them, just because that's what they are brought up as, they have already developed a certain perceptual ways of receiving things and understand things, we have along way to go in this society.
As you could see, i found this article very integrating and very informative, it might relate to Sensation part of this class, but it relates to the perception part of it, even though i found this article outside of the sources that we were provided with, i thought it was a great article and it was worth sharing with individuals like you guys who have more open minds than most.
TERMS: Perception, Brain Functioning, Receptive, Developed, brain system.
Blow is the article and a youtube video showing what happens when you try and do the challenge.
http://mic.com/articles/116222/what-the-fascination-with-kylie-jenner-s-lips-says-about-beauty-and-race?fb_action_ids=10203699186391910&fb_action_types=og.shares
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm1tPG2-STU
"No Rest For Your Sleeping Brain" was the article/audio that I chose from the npr website.
The title captured me right away. I have always been fascinated when it comes to the brain. And I have always thought that our brain doesn't really sleep either. I was curious right from the beginning. And I was hoping to find out if I was correct or not about what is happening when we are unconcious.
On a more personal note, brain activity has been the most interesting part of sensation and perception to me. Especially because they occur at and in different stages throughout a person's life.
The first thing I found out was presented during the audio portion of the article: "Even during your night and/or daydreaming sleep your brain is extremely active". A neurologist decided to even do a research experiment on this hypothesis. He conducted a very interesting and well documented experiment. His experiment is published in the journal "Neuron" which also talk about "The resting state" another very important term when talking about brain activity.
In Chapter 6 (and in relation to the article) it talks about having two laterally separated eyes that are connected to a single brain providing us with important information about depth through the geometry of the small differences between the images in each eye. As it also can be reference that those difference known as binocular disparities lead to stereoscopic depth perception.
From Chapter 8 and in reminisic to the audio/article, it talks about how the brain has to figure out which retinal motion arises in the world. Even during sleep, our brain must figure out what needs attention. If it should go into memory storage, the recollection process, and or continue to remain activity with brain activity in full capacity.
Chapters 6, 8, are just a couple of the chapters that can be directly linked to my selected piec. There are also connection to chapter 9, 11, 12 and 14 that deal with many concepts involving the brain.
From how the brain processes sound, the pitch, also in terms of articulation and acousitics. Another link would be from chapter 12 and the vestibular system and our senses involving spatial orientation. Our visual system is directly related to our eyes, brain and that whole process as well.
References:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/04/14/399599727/no-rest-for-your-sleeping-brain
http://sites.sinauer.com/wolfe3e/home/startF.htm
Terms: Brain, sensation, perception, stages, experiment, hypothesis, research, journal, pitch, articulations, acousitics, Neuron, brain areas, depth perception, eyes, binocular disparities, sleep, motion, retinal, neurologist, brain activity, resting state, spatial orientation, senses, visual system.