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psychologically disturbing what if question? (pg. 3)
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| Trancer85 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zenchowdah
Plato's allegory of the cave -
you are chained to a wall, looking at a wall, onto which reflections of real objects are cast with the aid of a large fire behind the to which you are chained. you live like this for years after your birth, and finally, you are let free to see the world as it is. at first, the sun (in this, representing truth) hurts your eyes, and you look away from it, back towards things you know, the shadows cast by trees and flowers and animals, but the sun does not let up. it pounds at your mind, forcing you to gaze upon it and accept it. at first it hurts, but slowly you are able to see things as they are, etc. etc.
i believe his theory of the forms is incorporated in there too, but i cant be arsed to bust out the philosophy book i stole in 11th grade. |
ooh, now i remember. i've heard this from one of my high school teacher. |
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| rabbitjoker |
| quote: | Originally posted by Trancer85
how this would psychologically change this person? |
Better question: how much crack do you smoke? :crazy:
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| Trancer85 |
| quote: | Originally posted by rabbitjoker
Better question: how much crack do you smoke? :crazy: j/k
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Better answer: Stay on the subject TARD!! :crazy: j/k |
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| Nautilus |
What story is that from? I know I read something that described this situation freshmen year in high school. They way the story went is that the men were bonded in chains in a pit and their only visual experience came in the form of the shadows of people who were free above the pit.
Nevermind. I should really read all the posts before I decide to post myself. |
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| mongeone |
| quote: | Originally posted by Orbax
lol
they actually did this experiment already :D
or something close to
they took kittens and raised them in a cylinder of black and white vertical stripes. after they grew up their brains werent able to detect horizontal patterns.
They hooked electrodes into their brains and when a vertical stripe went by their brain would basically buzz and say it saw it. The horizontal stripes produced 0 effect in the eyes or occipital lobe. |
that experiment was by Blakemore and Cooper in 1970. They nurtured kittens in 2 different environments. One with only horizontal lines and the other with only vertical lines. After the kittens had been raised they took them out and let one kitten from each environment play with eachother. Blackmore and Cooper waved a rod around them. When the rod was held horizontally the horizontal environment kitten could perceive it, wehn held vertically the vertical environment kitten could perceive it. After a while the kittens were able to see it either way but their sensitivity was greatly imparied compared to normal kittens.
Why is there this effect? Simply because the way we perceive things depends to a large degree on our experience. Once an image has reached the retina the light energy is turned into neural impulses which are sent up the optic nerve to the occipital (back of the head) lobe. There simple feature detector cells detect certain simple features such as line, angle etc. These detectors then send the informaiton onto more complex feature detectors such as shapes. These are then compared to stored images/experiences etc. and then the image is formed. For the formation of these feature detectors and stored images there is a critical develpoment period when one is a baby. If one is blind during that time then even if they have corrective surgery (like removal of cataracts) their perception of the world is impaired for the rest of their life.
William Molyneux wrote to John Locke "a man born blind, and now adult, taught by his touch to distinguish between a cube and a sphere" could if made to see, visually distinguish the two? The answer is no. Blind people made to see can distinguish figure from ground (shapes from the background) and colour but they can often not visually recognize objects that were familiar by touch.
This has many implications. For example one researcher taking a native african out of the jungle found out that the african man counldt perceive distances very well over open terrain. He thought a buffolo that was really a couple of hundred feet away was an insect a couple of metres away. This was because hed been living in a closed jungle environment his whole life.
There is a theory called sensory adaption. Our senses when subjected to a constant stimulus adapt by lowering their sensitivity to it. This is like when you walk into a smelly room after several minutes you become oblivious to it. Well its the same with all our senses. Our eyes actually quiver/shake just enough so that we never have any actual constant visual stimulus. If they didnt quiver then certain things would just dissappear and reappear. They actually tested this by attach a small projector to a ladies contact lens and they projected several different images on it like faces and words and surely enough the image would dissappear after an whilea nd evernow and then parts would show up.
*phew* that was long |
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| mongeone |
Another cool weirdo thing is our brains unlike computers can do several things at once. So the brain divides visual information into different parts to be processed. Such as: colour, motion, depth and form. If someone has a storke parts of this process can be stuffed up. There have been cases where the motion part has stopped working. This means that you could see a bird sitting on a bench but as soon as it flew off it would dissappear until it stopped moving. :eyes:
hehehe everyone lets guess what im studying in psychology at the mo! |
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| davinox |
| what the first person described is the equivolent to reality and the psychedelic experience. |
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| Trancer85 |
Interesting posts mongeone. Especially the one about the native African and the buffalo LOL.
I know for a fact that the brain is at its most critical stage since birth to adolsense. Almost everything you do as an adult is based on your childhood. Walking, talking, eating, writing, listening, emotions, you name it. Then as an adult you try and improve your activities. |
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| UWM |
I remember reading about several studies of this nature back in one of my neorobiology classes. The way vision is developed depends very heavily on early influence soon after birth. IIRC, studies were conducted including subjects which had one eye covered immediately after birth, another group had them covered after a pre-determined amount of time after birth, and a control group. The group that had their eyes covered immediately after birth had a very difficult time adjusting to their perceived field since one eye had developed so quickly and one had been given no stimulation. The group that had their eye covered later had some trouble adapting but recovered much more quickly.
Random post, kind of. Sorry. |
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| emander |
| quote: | Originally posted by Trancer85
What if one's head was locked into the same position forcing them to stare into the same blank white wall everyday since birth till an adult age, without any interractions with the real world and blocked from any human communications.
Of course the person will be given enough light, food, sleep, exercise from being able to move their body except their head.
Then what if he or she was suddenly released into the world? I wonder how the reaction would be? It's a torture just thinking about it, but i wonder sometimes how this would psychologically change this person? |
Toking a little too much these days I gather...
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| rabbitjoker |
| quote: | Originally posted by emander
Toking a little too much these days I gather...
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Exactly my thoughts - but all he did was swear at me in response... :confused: |
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| Trancer85 |
| quote: | Originally posted by emander
Toking a little too much these days I gather...
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sooo what? I can think straight when i'm stoned. |
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