To what extent can we rely on our senses?
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The broad definition of senses states that it’s a capacity of organisms which leads to perception. It requires both physical and mental involvement. With smell, sight, hearing, taste and touch humans perceive and acquire an external stimulus. The imposition of all these stimuli received by senses creates our world. People take for granted that all the impressions they have, all they feel, is true. Is it really true? Should we trust our brain under any circumstances?
Recently scientists have discovered and defined a new concept: inattentional blindness. This term stands for the situation when somebody is so concentrated on something that one’s brain doesn’t notice other things, even big and unusual ones. It may sound complicated, but it’s a quite simple issue. Our brain is constructed to focus on one thing, it doesn’t pay attention to other ones that aren’t needed at that moment. Let’s take into consideration one of the experiments called ‘Invisible Gorilla’, performed by American scientists, which you can watch below:
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It proved that the attention is in a greater extent a base for the relationship of perception and vision that it was previously thought. The failure of perceiving everything within the sight, including such anomalies which are hard to not to be spotted, attends to the greater and more efficient use of human's brain.
Another phenomenon is called change blindness. This term refers to the situation, which occurs in the case when the visual stimulus is showed to the observers and one change in it is introduced. Most of them aren’t able to detect the difference. It’s an instance for the limitation of humans’ brains and it has a fundamental meaning for the science of human behaviour.
Nowadays thanks to the development of all fields of the science, we are able to call our senses as selective ones. What does it really mean? Generally, a vast amount of stimulation constantly reaches us, while we notice only a tiny part of it. It means that our brain chooses what it wants to perceive. But on what conditions it’s able to reject some stimuli and consider others as more important ones? We ignore many of them simply because of the far too great amount of them. Most of car accidents are caused by our lack of awareness of these all limitations and insight.
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The most basic interaction between people and the surrounding world takes place thanks to the sensory perception. Is it possible that they are also fallible? The acknowledgement of its fallibility is the first step to make world more comfortable and what’s more – safer. Think about all the situations that your perception was heavily influenced by, your feelings and emotional state – by anger, calmness, excitement and so on. People perceive the actual world in different ways, according to their experiences and emotions. Actually, the stimuli are constantly the same, but our interpretation of them changes at different ways.
The nature of human beings is very selective and they are likely to remember, select or interpret information that the world provides us with at the way that not only suits their current beliefs, but also confirms them. We experience the confirmation bias on a daily basis without noticing it. For instance, in case that some issue brings out the strong emotional reaction or refers to the well-founded beliefs, it’s more likely to go through this effect. The tendency is strong enough to say that it leads our decisions and impairs humans’ objectiveness.
The question stated at the beginning can be answered in only one proper way: we can’t fully rely on our senses. But on the other hand if we can’t rely on them, on what can we? We have to credit ourselves with the trust and hope that our senses won’t disappoint us. We have to believe that nature knew what it has been creating and admit that everything takes place for a reason, so all effects mentioned above have some too.
Sources:
‘Theory of knowledge’ Oxford University Press
Were you the one from the majority, who didn’t notice the gorilla during the experiment?
To what extent can we rely on our senses?
Do you know any other experiments which prove how selective our brains are?
What kinds of danger can be caused by the issue considered above, besides these, which have already been mentioned?
I counted 16 passes, saw the gorilla and the curtain color changing but I didn't notice one of the black players leaving.
ReplyDeleteI think that those experiments are really interesting and human brain is an amazing thing. I was always amazed by studies that show what our brains can do and how it works. I remember one experiment where a guy was wearing goggles that showed him a picture of a world upside down and after a week of wearing them the brain adjusted and started to show him a picture that wasn't flipped :)
Here are some interesting books about neuropsychology, I remember I found them very entertaining and interesting:
http://lubimyczytac.pl/ksiazka/26654/mezczyzna-ktory-pomylil-swoja-zone-z-kapeluszem
http://merlin.pl/Muzykofilia-Opowiesci-o-muzyce-i-mozgu_Oliver-Sacks/browse/product/1,666901.html
I noticed the gorilla during the experiment, but I have to admit that frequently I see more then other people. Of course we are only humans, so it is not possible to notice everything and will be focused all the time. It is hard to say to what extent can we rely on our senses. Our senses help us interact with the world. Smell, hearing, sight, taste, touch, and external stimulus play a major role in shaping our perceptions of the surroundings and the world. We appear to rely on our senses in order to perceive the truth in terms of the world and the surroundings.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the biggest danger causes people who believies too much in division of attention. Many times because of that they lost their's life. The most tragic seems to me, people who are obsessed with Facebook. Maybe you heard about this: http://replikatorzy.pl/entries/5799/.
I noticed the gorilla during the experiment from the beginning when he walked in but I lost at counting the players.
ReplyDeleteI think that we can relly on our senses a lot with our intuition but it depends on situation.
The other example which I can give is a following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNF9QNEQLA .
A good example of danger can be talking on the cell phone while driving a car. You can easly cose an accident. The most stupid example which not happend recently and it was a famous death of a person who was driving a car and at the same time taking selfie. On the internet there was a photo titled "the last selfie".
I've already seen those experiments on Discovery Channel (the one with gorilla was featured in MythBusters, though they replaced the gorilla with zombie), so I knew what to look for in these videos :) However, when I saw them for the first time, I didn't notice the additional details.
ReplyDeleteExperiments like these are often shown on scientific channels on TV. We can fool our senses really easily. That effect is used in advertisements, for example - when people taste the same wine with different labels, they believe the taste is different - better when the label looks professional and expensive, much worse when it looks cheap.
I've recently read a book "Unweaving the rainbow" by Richard Dawkins, in which some of these phenomena are explained (especially the kind of effects like flipped vision mentioned by Paulina) - I'd strongly recommend it :)
I noticed the Gorilla but in fact it's hard to do when you are focuse on ball. Our brain doesn't like attend a few targets in one moment.
ReplyDeleteHowever our senses can be cheated i.e
Six ways that artists hack your brain"
Our senses are like a tasks in Computer and the brain is processor. When we listening music we lose track of time and don't pay attention to surroundings. The point isn't that we don't have enough power to parallel feelings. Our brain want to do one thing in the best way and then it go to next task.
Perfect example, when we writing a message on the phone while we're driving we lost focus on the road. Effects are often visible.
I have noticed all of changes, but only probably because I watched some similar experiments before. In my opinion we can rely on our senses but we need to train them to perceive more things in one time. When I was first time in Warsaw and I was driving a car I was having really big problem with concentration, because there was so many cars and I didn't know the route to my target and I had to checked route on gps. It was really hard for me couple years ago, but now I don't have problem with this, because my mind get used to it.
ReplyDeletePaulina, that's impressive: you managed to count the passes correctly – I didn't even try, it was too fast ;)
ReplyDeleteI spotted the gorilla but I completely failed to notice the player leaving and most surprisingly- the curtain changing it's color !
I found the poster about driving really interesting. From my experience, talking on the phone while driving is quite absorbing for my attention. I notice less than a half of the details on the road while talking, that I would normally see when concentrated only on driving.
I suppose that the features of human senses mentioned here are being heavily used in marketing industry – who knows how THEY are fooling our brains ;)
I managed to count 16 passes and the gorilla but not the curtain changing and one girl leaving.
ReplyDeleteI think senses are one of the most important things we have. I cannot imagine leaving without any of them, it doesn't matter if using our senses brain can make us perceive sometimes differently. Sometimes I think this is a whole beauty in it.
I think that the ability to focus on certain thing and ignore others is one of the most useful that our brain developed. Every time you say something or do any kind of noise the sound of is bouncing of walls, hitting your ears many times but in fact you hear it only once. This is because your brain cut off this "ambient noise".
ReplyDeleteThe whole point of active relaxation is to do something that will force your brain to focus every senses on this one thing and ignore other thoughts and fillings.
It can lead to some unpleasantness, thieves use our inattentional blindness to distract us, but still it can make you survive in extreme situations.
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ReplyDeleteI’ve already seen that video Invisible Gorilla that is why I was able to notice the gorilla at once. As one can see it is very easy to manipulate our minds that is why we should focus on what we do. It will help us to avoid manipulation that daily impacts on us at least for some time.
ReplyDelete@Jan I can totally agree with you. That that kind of ability of our brain is incredible and i think that allows us to funcional in our life. Just imagine yourself, usually clock ticking, we didn't notice that when we hear it from some period of time. How annoying it will be if we will hear it all the time? Sound crazy :)
ReplyDeleteI have noticed all of changes because I did not count the amount of passes and I have already seen similar videos. However, I am aware of the fact that our brain has a limitation in perception and there are a lot of techniques to cheat our brains.
ReplyDeleteThe best example to trick our brain is optical illusion. You can see some examples here
Very interesting and cool article. When watching a movie with counting passes I noticed the gorilla. Maybe it's because I wasnt too focused on counting and observing surroundings.
ReplyDeleteThese types of experiments show that the human mind is an intriguing tool. Many things we do subconsciously. and many times it can make us surprise. The best example of how to cheat the brain are magic tricks. I once saw on a television channel discovery document which was about how magicians deceive us. Everyone thinks that such things are magic, and this is only an illusion that the impact of this on our brain. All tricks are trivial and just about where our vision and our main focus.
Were you the one from the majority, who didn’t notice the gorilla during the experiment?
ReplyDeleteYes
To what extent can we rely on our senses?
I think that we have only our senses to rely on... I don't really see the idea behind this question.
Do you know any other experiments which prove how selective our brains are?
Porn, music, sounds in general, literature, movies, photos, logics, basiacally in every aspect of our lives we are not 100% accurate in what we do.
What kinds of danger can be caused by the issue considered above, besides these, which have already been mentioned?
Like an good example of danger that can be caused by the above, talking on the cell phone while driving a car?
I viewed a gorilla in this experiment. Maybe because I often watch "Pulapki Umysłu" on National Geographic Channel.
ReplyDeleteWhat you see is mostly not true.
Remember this ;)