Experiments on Trusting Senses

Experiments on Trusting Senses The illusion of sight and sound This report examines what aspects of psychology can provide interactive and informative ways to provide an opportunity for the public to evaluate whether they can trust their senses. Focusing on vision and the illusion created by the human mind, also auditory perception, and the co-dependence on other senses, for example sight. 1: Introduction The minute decisions we make are based upon the information we gain from our senses. The human body depends on five senses, this report will focus on the individuals ability to see and hear. However, the way the human body processes information can trick the senses and the brain into not hearing sounds or seeing illusions. This report will outline some ways in which psychologists understanding of the senses may provide useful interactive tools to connect with the public and give an opportunity for self-discovery. 2: What are the senses? The senses are the bodies way of gaining information from the surrounding environment. The five senses are sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, which has three individual aspects, feeling temperature, pain and pressure. These senses provide the body with information externally and internally. There is also proprioception, known as the sixth sense. This additional sense gives information as to where the body is in relation to the environment, for example where the different limbs are in correlation to the environment, the bodies need for food and drink, body awareness (Turner, Block4, 2015). 3: How the other four senses work? Our sense of taste is influenced by sight and smell, for instance cover your nose and eat with a blindfold on and some of your favourite foods may taste differently. The sense of taste is altered by personal experience, emotions are also tied to the bodies relationship to food and expectations of the taste and texture of a food (Turner, Block 4, 2015). Smell is based on experience, there are some smells many find unpleasant. However, when exposed to an odour repeatedly, the body learns to mask and ignore the scent, for instance a perfume can smell amazing or terrible, influenced completely by your attraction to the individual wearing it (Turner, Block 4, 2015). Touch is often influenced by subjective comparisons. Proprioception, awareness of environment, for example, feeling heat near the skin or cool air, touching hard or soft surfaces (Turner, Block 4, 2016). 3.1: Vision Sight is the most trusted of the senses, however what is seen by the individual is dependent on personal beliefs, levels of attention and perceptions. The human eye can only detect light in a faction of the range of the electromagnetic spectrum, to counter this shortcoming the individual builds an accurate internal representation of the surrounding environment. People rarely see what is occurring around them and often fill in the blanks with assumptions. For example, when being asked to describe the contents in a bedroom, the assumption is there was a bed there, even if we didnt see one (Turner, Block 4, 2015). 3.2: Auditory perception Hearing is often based on assumptions, for instance, having misheard what someone said, even when they speaking clearly or not noticing a repetitive sound until it is pointed out to you. A typical person hears less than a bat or elephant in terms of range of sound frequencies. People are constantly surrounded by sound and learn to filter out much of the environmental noise (Turner, Block 4, 2016). An individual can focus attention on areas of interest, for example, at a party, where many conversations are going on, yet the human ear only tunes in to the conversation of interest. 4: Interactive examples For the public to fully engage with the surrounding environment and to gain a clearer understanding about the human abilities and limitations of sight and sound, the suggestion of interactive visual illusions offers a good opportunity to evaluate whether they can trust their senses within a fun and relaxed way. Â   Â   Â   For example, this YouTube video which illustrates the individuals perception of length and distance. This optical illusion illustrates a three-dimensional perception, how the distance between lines and shapes cause the brain to perceive a size difference simply by altering lines. This illusion is also known as The Ponzo illusion, which favours the top-down process, simply put, the human brain decides on what is being perceived based on prior existing knowledge (Turner, Block 4, 2015). A suggested example for auditory senses, this video plays a distorted sentence, twice which allows the brain to begin existing prior information to help understand incoming information. The sentence will be played for a third time, when to the surprise of the individual the sentence is understandable. Usually the individual assumes the audio has been changed but once explained can help people draw attention to whether they can trust their senses or not. Also within the framework of this exhibition the language barrier and the possible decreased ability of some senses should be considered. A language option being provided before individuals begin the various tasks, maybe including a sign language option should be considered as to not exclude any members of the public from this learning experience. 5: Conclusion Discovering if the senses humans depend on can be trusted can be developed into an adventure of self-knowledge. Appling different techniques of visual optical illusions, problem solving activities which require minimal skills to complete and auditory illusion, the exhibition becomes interactive with the public and can continue to develop within a multi-cultural framework, however the exhibition should balance the many languages and sensory needs of all visitors to this exhibition. That a verbal and visual aid should be suggested along with language opinions. In conclusion, the evidence is persuasive that there are still many things to learn about human senses, however the individual senses working together seem to manage the important tasks of everyday life. On balance this exhibition will help to build a greater understanding of our own boundaries of self. Word Count: 1017 References An audio Illusion-Your Brain, [ Online]. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG9HSvNPVKQ (Accessed [ 20.03.2017]). Moving Illusions, [ Online]. Available at https://youtu.be/Iw8idyw_N6Q (Accessed [ 20.03.17]). Turner, J. (2016), section 3:Auditory perception, DD210, Bock 4, Week 18, Making sense of the world, [Online].https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=843722section=3 (Accessed [ 20.03.17]). Turner, J. (2016), section 6:Developing your skills: report writing, DD210, Bock 4, Week 21, Conspiracy theories, [Online]. https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=843725section=6 (Accessed [ 21.03.17]). Turner J., (2015) Making Sense of the world, in: Turner, J., Barker, M.J. (eds.) Living psychology: From the Everyday to the Extraordinary. (Book 2.) Milton Keynes, The Open University. Turner, J. (2016), section 2:You are plastic and so are your brains, DD210, Bock 4, Week 18, Making sense of the world, [ Online]. Available at https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=843722 (Accessed [ 20.03.17]). Turner, J. (2016), section 4:Motion perception, DD210, Bock 4, Week 18, Making sense of the world, [Online]. https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=843722section=4 (Accessed [ 21.03.17]). Turner, J. (2016), section 3:Perceiving things that arent there: pareidolia, DD210, Bock 4, Week 19, Everyday errors in making sense of the world, [Online]. https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=843723section=3 (Accessed [ 21.03.17]). The government minister may focus on the decrease of -14% from 2013-14 in Credit card identity theft. However, the opposing shadow minister could counter with data illustrating a decrease from 26,488 -15,420 in 2008-2011 when the shadow government were in place. However, the government minister could also suggest the data implies an increase from 15,420 24,078 in 2011-2012, before the initiatives were imposed and therefore implicating the shadow minsters government as being at fault. Overall from the public view point there is only 5.4% difference between the figure in 2008 and the figure presented in 2014, the data shows a steady decline during 2008-2011. However, during 2012 there was a shape increase of 8.658 incidents which increases again in 2013 and falls by -14% in 2014. The government minister May also focus on the overall decrease of 4% in 2013-14 in counterfeit fraud (cloned/skimmed cards). However, the shadow minister may wish to raise that in 2009 this area was at its lowest of 99,403 incidents and at its highest in 2013 with figures reaching 138,967 incidents and therefore there is no real decrease in occurrences as the initial figures suggest, in fact there is an increase of incidents after the measures were put in place by the present government minister. From the public view point in 2013 incidents increase by 25.964 taking the figure to 138.967 which then fell by -4% to 133.943, the two highest figures from 2008-2011 the data shows a strong decrease from 2008 -2009 dropping from 115,590 to 99,403, however, there is a steady increase from 2010-2012 the data showing that an additional 11.056 incidents occurred. Overall the data suggests that the measures and initiatives put in place by the government minster in this area have increased the le vel of incidents occurring. Data suggests that the area of remote/online purchase fraud has grown by 7% the shadow minister may well raise the evidence which shows a marked increase in incidents from 2012-2013 which is when the measures were imposed, there is a growth of 201.788 incidents occurring. And this figure increases again in 2014 by 7%. However, the government minister could suggest that the figures from 2013-2014 for credit card identity theft and counterfeit fraud (cloned/ skimmed cards) has a decrease of -18% collectively and therefore suggest more resources be directed towards remote/ online purchase fraud. The government minster could also argue that the data suggests from 2011-2012 there was an increase of 40.798 incidents which were before any measures were in place. However, the shadow minister can use the data to show that during 2008-2011 there was a decrease of incidents totalling 165.684. From the publics view point the area of remote/online purchase fraud has the highest incident rate across the data table. The data suggest the measures which were in place prior to 2013 show stronger impact across the data table. In 2009 column, there is a marked decrease in all areas in contrast with 2013 column after the measures were imposed there is a marked increased in all areas. The data table suggest the public are at more risk from fraud in 2013-2014 then in 2009. Word count: 523 Are lies more believable than the truth? As the title suggests the purpose of this short essay is to outline the research undertaken by psychologist into rumours and conspiracy theories and assess if the research findings favour or refute the idea that a lie is more believable than the truth. There is a traditional saying that A lie can get halfway round the world before the truth has its boots on, It can be argued that rumours create conspiracy theories and just like a pebble in the pond creates more ripples, more rumours can enable a collective cycle of mutual reinforcement. For instances, Procter et al., observed media reports and the social media engine Twitter during the English riots of August 2011, this allowed for an opportunity to study how rumours begin and grow over the course of an event. Byford, (Block 4, 2016), suggests that close to 2.6million tweets were posted during and shortly after the events, carrying a hashtag pertaining to the riots and occurring events. The purpose of Procter et al., 2013 observation was to gain insight into specifically tweets which make claims and counter claims about unfolding events, but lack the evidence to refute or support the claims. This information can then be used to clearly demonstrate the difference between rumour and factual tweets. Byford, (Block 4, 2016) suggests the study results showed a pattern, a cycle of a rumour beginning to spread via a tweet being shared by others, before being flagged and questioned for rationale, evidence or support. This then began the cycle of a few people questioning the many and this would then become a debate, which leads to the tweet being slowly ignored and no longer shared, as the rationale or lack of clear evidence being shown discouraged believability. However, the findings of this study also showed that a false tweet spread faster than the subsequent debate or conclusion of its falsehood. Procter et al., 2013, p. 204 uses the rumour of rioters attacking Birmingham childrens hospital to illustrate the speed in which false tweets are shared in comparison to rebuttals. This analogy suggests the rumours travel three times as fast as the explanation provided by the police at that time, clearly rebutting the false rumour. The cycle was the same it took longer for the falsehood t o be refuted and disregarded. Procter et al., (Block 4, 2013), also noted individuals arriving late to the conversations showed a preference for the original false tweet rather than the debate or rebuttal, this action may suggest that the debate and rebuttal are somewhat ignored. In conclusion, many conspiracy theories continue with strong momentum simply because there is no clear unrefutably solid evidence provided, which only adds to the collective cycle of mutual reinforcement as there have been some Conspiracy theories found to be factual for example, Security services in the USA and Europe monitoring communications and terrorists conspiring to carry out the 9/11 attacks, However, as many if not more conspiracy theories are shown to be faulted. The strength of social media to do good and harm plays out mostly with rumour and fact. As the research suggests lies do travel faster than the truth. Word count:532 References Byford, J., (2015) Conspiracy theories, in: Turner, J., Barker, M.J. (eds.) Living psychology: From the Everyday to the Extraordinary. (Book 2.) Milton Keynes, The Open University. Turner, J. (2016), section 3:Conspiracy theories as stories, DD210, Bock 4, Week 21, Conspiracy theories, [Online]. https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=843725section=3 (Accessed [ 21.03.17]). Turner, J. (2016), section 7:Developing your skills: numeric data and statistics in psychology and everyday life, DD210, Bock 4, Week 19, Everyday errors in making sense of the world, [Online]. https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=843723section=7 (Accessed [ 21.03.17]). Turner, J. (2016), section 6: Focus on methods: risk, randomness and probability, DD210, Bock 4, Week 19, Everyday errors in making sense of the world, [Online]. https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=843723section=6 (Accessed [ 21.03.17]). Turner, J. (2016), section 4:Heuristics and biases: health and safety, DD210, Bock 4, Week 19, Everyday errors in making sense of the world, [Online]. https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=843723section=4 (Accessed [ 21.03.17]). Procter, R, Vis, F, Voss, A 2013,Reading the riots on Twitter: methodological innovation for the analysis of big data, International Journal of Social Research methodology, 16,3, pp. 197-214 [ online]. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2013.774172 (Accessed [ 21.03.17])