It’s the end of Week Seven.
I sent off my ethics application and we’re approved! I can now test participants as soon as the paradigm is ready next term! This week I had ONE lecture. So I’m mixing up interoceptive awareness with information from this week’s assignment about sight.
Here are my actual notes from last and this week’s Consciousness lectures. Which is your favourite zoo animal? Which drawing do you like best here?
So, here are this week’s fun facts:
- We have a lot of senses: Sight, Sound, Smell, Touch, Hearing, Temperature (thermoception), balance (equilibrioception), where our body is in space (you’re your arm is a foot of the ground not a metre off… called proprioception), pain (nocioception) and interoception (the joining of all internal senses). Cool, huh?
- I also learnt that the sense of time is called “chromethesia”. I would never have called that a “human sense” before. Either way, it’s pretty cool since it’s a concept we completely made up.
- People who are more aware of their heartbeat are more likely to have panic disorders/ feel anxiety more. Explains a lot.
- If you are presented with a threatening stimulus as your heart beats (i.e. in time with your heartbeat) you will get a stronger fear response than if it’s out of time.
- It is still generally thought that people with a higher ability to sense their heartbeat also have traditionally higher pain thresholds (although this is now getting some counter-evidence).
- In humans, the colour yellow is actually caused by red and green cones both being activated at the same time.
- Although colour and motion pathways in the brain are completely separate, humans use colour to aid them in distinguishing moving objects.
- Dutch belted rabbit retinas (or retinae) work similarly to those of the tiger salamander.
- By the time the visual information of a moving object reaches our brain, it’s moved on. This means we only see the past (like every star we see is looking back in time).
- Our retinae follow the leading edge of a moving object and, based on its speed, guess where it will be by the time the information reaches our brain.
Does any of this surprise you?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments and have a good week.
– Rose –
