Stop and Stare..but make sure you don't get caught

Someone told me, that during class when she looks at someone, and the other person looks back, they end up smiling at each other. She said she couldn't help herself and that this always happens.

I believe that they do this because when they look at each other they start feeling a little squish (the new 'in word' for awkward. Therefore it happens that they smile at each other to make that awkward feeling go away.

Having learned about Psychology, reflexes and our culture can we somehow understand this behavior? Tell me what you think!

This brings somethings else to mind. There is this saying which states: "Don't feel bad if the person you look at catches you looking at him since it means that he is looking back".
Do you think that this is true or that we feel when someone is looking at us, or we see it through or peripheral vision and we therefore look at the person looking at us?

Expectations, Apples, and Potatoes

Last week, we discussed in class that if you blindfolded yourself and pinched your nose tightly, you would not be able to taste the difference between a raw potato and an apple. This is because you cannot taste, and the way things smell and look effect how it tastes. This is due to our expectations, which often make a difference in how we perceive something.

So, over shabbos, Rachel E. Tsuna and I decided to experiment. We peeled an apple and a raw potato, and then cut them into similar sizes and shapes. We took turns blindfolding one another, and as one was blindfolded and pinching their nose into nonexistence, the other would pick a piece of apple and a piece of potato for the blindfolded person to eat.

It was so cool- we could not taste the difference between the apple and the potato! However, our apple was to soft and when we ate it we could tell it was an apple and not a potato. Of course, they both tasted the same, as we could not really tell the difference. Rachel had no problem swallowing the potato. However, when I ate the potato, even though it did not taste gross or anything, I had a hard time swallowing once I realized it was potato because just the thought of eating a raw potato was disturbing.
But you really cannot tell the difference! If the apple were harder, we would never have known.

This says a lot about the way our senses work. Seeing and smelling can effect taste, as can our expectations. Try this experiment yourself to see how cool it is.

*i would like to note: Someone thought it would be funny to put hot sauce on the apple/potato slice when I was blindfolded, and I could DEFINITELY taste the hot sauce. Even though I could not see or smell...

Senses

When we learned about smell in class I thought that it was particularly interesting how when we smell something, it can immediately bring back a memory. I can relate to this very much. However, I felt that we could also remember something just as easily by hearing a song or seeing a picture. When we learned that the smells go straight from our noses into our frontal lobe. This makes it a much quicker process for it to enter the brain, unlike vision and hearing which go through long processes. Additionally, I found that the way the senses work is quite fascinating. Nobody really notices how amazing of a process it is just to hear a tiny sound or see a person! And, even though the smelling process is a lot less complicated, it is still incredible. This is an amazing miracle that happens a billion times a day and I personally think that we do not give God enough credit for making us this way.

Color and Depression

I don't know about you, but when I think about color, I think happy. Can you imagine walking in to a garden and not being able to perceive the different color flowers, trees, and bugs? The beauty of the garden is just gone.
When we were looking at the picture of Snow White and the seven dwarves, I came to realize something. Even when a simple picture like that doesn't have color, it still loses everything. It's almost like it's meaningless. This is when I began to wonder if color blindness caused depression. Think about this: Depression is often referred to as "feeling blue", and those who suffer from it are sometimes told to "lighten up". I could be sounding a little negative, but it just makes sense to me. It's almost like those cold, rainy days in school where everyone is in a bad mood. When you look out the window, all you perceive is a dreary day, and all of your negative thoughts come pouring in.
So, I searched the web and read some very interesting articles. I found that, in a way, depression is what leads to color blindness. (the opposite of what I thought) Many studies show that depressed people have reduced sensitivity to contrast, and therefore that they may perceive the world differently from others. Contrast gain is the process by which cells in the retina adapt to variance in the light intensity of a visual scene so that the amount of information extracted from it can be maximized. Neuropsychiatrist Ludger Tebartz van Elst found a significant difference in the contrast gain-related activity between depressed patients and controls. The participants diagnosed with depression displayed a marked reduction in contrast gain when compared with the controls. In conclusion, depressed people may indeed experience the world as being less colorful.

M"ear"acles.

I don't know if the following story is true or not, but I was interested in how the ear magically receives energy signals and turns them into chemical messages and then we can hear. I mean, I understand the process but it is a miracle that it worked out that way, if you think about it. So anyways, I was just looking up ears and I found the following story. I will summarize it and put the link if you want to read it.

Joshua Bull was born almost deaf and without ears, and doctors restored his hearing and gave him artificial ears. He was born with small misshapen flaps of skin for ears, as well as blocked ear canals which meant he could hardly hear a thing. Surgeons inserted one bone-anchored hearing aid to his skull, bypassing the blocked ear canal and enabling him to hear. Then they fitted him with ears that he can just take on and off like glasses.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-563391/How-boy-born-ears-hear--beat-bullies--thanks-artificial-ears.html

So, we should appreciate our ears every day and also appreciate the miracle of hearing and medical science. This little boy was 7, I believe, when he could hear, and he was delighted.

Isn't this nice and inspiring?

Don't you think that everything we learn about is a miracle? Our bodies can do these amazing things automatically... it's unbelievable.

2 is better than one, even with ears!

Today, in class we were learning about how our ear works and how we hear different things. We then spoke about how we can detect where sound comes from, since we have two ears, and we can then "measure" where the energy waves are coming from. It was very strange, since yesterday when I was looking for my phone I was angling my body in different directions in order to maybe hear the phone. Now I know the exact idea behind this and I am amazed how so many things in our body are perfect like that we have two ears for a reason.

Hello my dear fellow classmates,
So this week we learned about perception and sensation. It is just so amazing to me that we sense things continuously throughout our day without even noticing it. When you really pay attention, tehre is SO MUCH going on around you and it is just shocking that our mind doesnt go crazy from the overwhelming amount of things we can sense. Excluding those who have ADD or ADHD, most of us can block out the things that we sense and dont want to focus on. Here is my question though: Whenever we are taking a test, i strictly remember that Alexa(probably among other people as well) would never be able to focus if there was noise around us, even if it wasnt severe. However, Rory from Gilmore Girls was able to focus on reading her book even though a fire alarm went off right next to her and a boy fainted five feet from her. How come some people can perceive things without any distraction to a much deeper extent than others?
In addition, i would like to bring up another question. So you know how some teachers like Mr. Vaughn or Mr. Perl were able to write something on the board while a student asks a completely different question? How can they focus on both things at the same time whereas other teachers need to stop writing to listen to the question and be able to focus? I am unable to liaten to soemone tell em a story while texting another friend, or listen to music while i study. Yet Sade, for example, can text someone while i tell her a story and while she is listening to music and reading wall post on facebook? How come she can multitask and perceive so many things while i can only perceive one thing at a time?

Basketball and Psychology

Basketball is definitely my favorite sport. I watch and play a lot of basketball. Now, what does this have to do with Psychology?
As I watched Dwayne Wade dribble down the court, I had a feeling what he was going to do with the ball. I saw Lebron James look at Wade and cut towards the basket as Wade instantaneously threw the ball. James caught it and scored two points for the Miami Heat. When I'm playing defense on someone, I sometimes give my opponent some space. There are many reasons for this. One reason is because I'm looking at the point guard, and I perceive from her face and body contact that she is desperately wanting to pass to my opponent. Therefore, I give my opponent some space to make the point guard think she is open. Once the point guard sees that I am no longer "on top of" my opponent, she instantly passes to her and I cut in to steal the pass. This all happens in about 5 seconds. This seems pretty simple, but it's not. How is our brain able to perceive these things so quickly?
Psychologist David Perret identified nerve cells that specialize in responding to a specific gaze, head angle, posture, or body movement. Other supercell clusters integrate this information and fire only when the cues collectively indicate the direction of someone's attention and approach. This instant analysis helps a soccer goalie to anticipate the direction of an impending kick. This also explains how I stole the ball in my earlier example!

Art and Psychology

As many of you know, I love art. I am very into drawing, and I often doodle designs in my notebooks at school. When I draw these pictures I never stop and think about the psychology behind the ways we view different aspects of art, like shading, and the illusions that are created by overlapping images. However, while reading about the different monocular cues in the section about depth perception, I found that I could understand the different types of cues, like interposition- when one object blocks the view of another object so it is perceived to be larger. Even while painting, there are certain things that are taken into consideration, like how light or dark the picture will be. Artists use all of these methods to help convey certain messages and express their feelings through their paintings. It is really cool to me how we can connect psychology to everything that we do, even something as simple as drawing a picture.

Tuning in to Everything

This week we discussed sensation and perception. There are thousands of things that we sense, so why don't we go crazy? We are constantly being bombarded by sensations. What do we pay attention to? If we are sitting at the table doing homework, we are not focused on the phone. But when the phone rings or buzzes we turn immediately to get it. Although we are constantly sensing things, the brain can get rid of information that's not important and you perceive only what is important.

But what happens when during class, as the teacher  gives over important information, a light begins to flicker and buzz quietly? You would tune out the buzzing and light flicking. But what if you cannot? What if your attention jumps from the teacher to the light, and from the light to the hum of the computer, and then back to the teacher, and then the light, and then the computer again?

Imagine how hard it would be if you could not filter what you do or do not perceive. I just wanted to let you think about how hard that would be...never able to focus on one single thing. Imagine trying to take a test, or take notes...