How Our Senses Deceive Us - Alternative View

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How Our Senses Deceive Us - Alternative View
How Our Senses Deceive Us - Alternative View

Video: How Our Senses Deceive Us - Alternative View

Video: How Our Senses Deceive Us - Alternative View
Video: Do Our Senses Reveal the World—Or Do They Obscure It? | Beau Lotto | Big Think 2024, May
Anonim

What seems to be perfect in a person is often built from "crude" mechanisms and a fair amount of deception of the person himself.

Look …

Our eyes are practically unable to see anything at any given time

Our eyes seem to us to be a super-powerful optical device, and this is not surprising: after all, they allow us to see at the same time such huge objects as mountains and seas, or, say, our mother from head to toe. Everything would be fine, but the problem is that in fact we do not see anything of this. The light-sensitive cells in our eyes are concentrated mainly in an area known as the fovea, or fovea centralis. This area is extremely small in size. Try to imagine a 1-degree wide cone resting its tip against the surface of the eyes. Everything that you are able to see in detail at any given moment in time fits into this narrow cone. To better understand what has been said, try to fix your eyes at one point and read this page. Anything beyond the words "you can't" will be completely blurred.

In addition, most of the light-sensitive cells in our eyes, called cones, are completely focused on perceiving this small area of the outside world, since there are too few of them for us to allow ourselves to spray forces. In total, the average person has about 6 million of these cones, and since each of them is sensitive to only one of the primary colors, red, green or blue, we get a picture equivalent to a 2-megapixel photo or 1080p video (Full HD).

And the 4K format, by comparison, contains 8 million pixels. "Wait a minute," you say, "how can I see a 4K image then?" Answer: you can't. 4K video looks great because the small area on which our eyes are focused at any given time is visible in every detail, and we practically do not see everything else. If the rest of the image, with the exception of these few square centimeters, had a much lower resolution, we would not even notice it.

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Here is a black and white photograph, on which, on top of the main image, colored lines are applied, but our eyes see colored clothes, colored chair backs, and so on. If you look closely at a small part of the image, you will notice a gray background and colored lines. But, as already mentioned, everything outside the fovea's field of view is completely blurry, so our brain mixes everything together. The tiny size of the fovea is the cause of many classic optical illusions.

So, for example, scientists have not yet come to a consensus about why you now see imaginary gray circles at the intersection of the lines of this grid.

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But you probably do not see anything like that at each particular intersection point on which you focused your attention. In the literature, you can find an explanation of all this breathtaking witchcraft, which fully deserves the name "mind game", but now the only important thing for us is that at each moment of time we see only a small area of the image on which we are focused. Everything else is beyond the perception of our fovea and is therefore completely invisible. The whole secret is that switching from one area to another occurs very quickly, we sort of scan the space and a synthesized image is formed in the brain.

Our taste buds hardly perceive taste

Taste buds are pretty good at detecting if what you put in your mouth is poison. And that's actually all. When it comes to distinguishing shades of taste, here, as everyone knows, smell plays an important role. But most people have no idea how poorly the language performs its functions. Here's an easy way to verify this. Cut some apple and onion cubes, then pinch your nose completely, close your eyes and put these cubes in your mouth. You won't believe it until you try it: you cannot tell them apart. Be sure to do this experiment with your friends - we guarantee a lot of fun.

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There are many factors that influence how we infer the taste of food, in addition to the scarce information from our taste buds. Some of them are already well known, but scientists are constantly discovering new ones. For example, changing the color is enough, and the mousse will be perceived as sweeter. And if you turn on some quiet music, the creamy toffee toffee will seem a little bit more bitter. If you chew on chips and hear a loud crunch, you will feel that they taste and touch more fresh than the last time you tried, when in fact they are the same chips. It is entirely possible that some researchers are now struggling to prove that sometimes sandwiches taste better if you eat them in the toilet.

All of these phenomena are attributed to psychologists of taste, which is replete with amazing effects. However, much stranger things happen when certain types of taste buds are turned off. You know the disgusting taste of orange juice right after brushing your teeth. And it's not about the effects of menthol exposure. The reason is that the chemicals in toothpaste drown out our sweet taste receptors and, on the contrary, activate those responsible for bitterness, clearing them of the fatty film.

Another effect, no less strange, but much more pleasant, can be obtained by eating an artichoke and then drinking water. A chemical in artichoke called cynarin coats a thin film on the “sweet” receptors on the surface of the tongue, and water washes away this film, stimulating their activity, and you feel like drinking a sweet drink, although it is not.

Thus, it is quite easy to turn sour into bitter and clear water into sweetness. You can easily fool your tongue into thinking sour foods are sweet with a strange berry called Synsepalum dulcificum, or with an extract if you are unlucky enough to live in the area where they are grown in Taiwan. or in West Africa. Eating these "wonderful berries" causes the "sweet" receptors to close until the acid reactivates them. It is enough to eat a couple of these berries, and within half an hour the lemon slices will taste exactly like gummies made from marmalade. What can we say about how all your usual daily food will taste after a few sips of soy sauce!