I was wondering. If one can feel "ghost" arms or hands, could someone be tought to mistakenly "feel" something other than their body? Something like a baseball, perhaps. Of course this would had to be a sort of "pseudo" feeling, since there is not any sort of signal running from the strange object to the person's brain. But then there's vision; there's a guy, who lost his proprioception and now has to actively look at the arm or leg he wants to move in order to do it, so I think that something similar could be possible. It probably wouldn't have any application, but it's an intriguing possibility. ... Other thing I was thinking. If we can have these feelings of "ghost members", "ghost pain" and so on, what implication does it have for hypochondriacs and the sensations of their own bodies? I think that perhaps they may create very realistic illusions of things going on their bodies, without any real signaling from the body, instead of being only just subtle impressions/misattributions that they exaggerate by some sort of paranoia - which I think that probably is the common thought about it, though I don't really know.
Phantom limbs(?). There's an experiment or two at the link below. It's supposed to imitate the sensation of a phantom limb. http://mindbluff.com/phantom.htm When you use the example of a baseball: Do you want to trick the person into believing they have an (imaginary) baseball as a body part; or attach a real baseball and make them feel it (the baseball) as if it were a body part?
(yeah, phantom limbs is the usual term) I was thinking about something like, coupling the visual stimulus of someone or doing something with a baseball (at some distance, not attached), with some sensorial/body stimulus in the brain; the person would believe to have some sort of telepathic tact. I wonder if the person would feel, that it's happening "there", at a unusually long range, but in a similar manner that we feel our body parts; somewhat like we would feel something at distance if we were the mr. Fantastic from "fantastic four" or that elastic-man of dc comics. I think that theoretically the brain would be able to fool ourselves to feel something like it, even though we may not be able to hack our brains into doing it, as the feeling that it's happening in our body is a sort of "illusion". Thanks for the link.
Only now I've read the link! It's surprisingly close to what I'v thought, but far more handy, without the ethical implications and technical problems! I got to try it eventually!
In normal humans (not blind etc) vision dominates all other senses, even when vision is in error and the other sense is correct. A common example is a movie - the voice seems to come from the screen image with moving lips and not from the loud speaker which is sometimes high up on the side wall. If you have access to a strobe or flash lamp, here is a fascinating thing you can experience: Put one hand flat against the wall, at arm’s length in totally dark room, but with eyes looking at it (if there were light). You should stay in the dark for a few minutes to 'dark adapt" your eyes (unless the single flash is very bright). Immediately after the flash does let you briefly see you hand and it is dark again you will have a "positive after image" - I.e. still see it for a few seconds. As this image is in your retina, it will move if you move your eyes.* Don't do that - just continue to stare at that same now dark spot on the wall, but quickly move your hand down to your side. You will contionue to see it on the wall still, as the other sense, which are telling your brain correctly that the hand is at your side will be ignored (I.e. human's senses are vision dominated.) The fascinating part comes in a few seconds as the after image begins to fade out. - Parts of your hand will vanish and parts will remain. This is called "the crumbling hand". Chalmers, who first said "Consciousness is the hard problem," also said that there is no acceptable explanation known by cognitive scientists (and I agree) for the "the crumbling hand" effect, but my model of perception easily explains it as I believe all experience the is part of a real-time simulation made in parietal brain region, and not the "emergent end result" of many stages of neural computations/processing that is the orthodox cognitive scientist's POV. ------------------------ *Normally the retinal image of an object at fixed location jumps to new retinal locations with each new fixation, but there is an automatic compenstating correction for the retinal displacments, which will be applied so the after image will move, BECAUSE it is fixed on the retina. How this correction is made is also interesting: The correction needed is computed from the COMMAND sent to the eyes to look in a new direction, not from the actual movement that is produced in responce to the command. This correction is completed while the eyes are in motion to the new direction of fixation. (neural computations take time -a strong part of why I reject the accepted cognitive sciens'e POV about perception. I.e. I can play fast game of ping pong, with very complex computaions required.) This can be proven by a cuari injection into the mussles that cause the eye to move. Then when you only think (only issue the command) to, for example, look right, the whole world will lurch left as the eyes did not move but the correction was automatically applied.
hey billy thats something i have been meaning to post I often get a sort of disconect between what i see and what i hear. Not in the sence of one coming more slowly than the other or not geting one or the other but in my mind they never seem to be conected So i will see some lips moving with no sound and a voice with no lips at the same time (sorry thats the best way i can discribe it) Has anyone ever herd of this before?
Interesting. No I do not know of this in the literature. Is the "failure to integrate" only with animate objects? Or, for example, if you see a glass falls and it breaks can you experience the visual breaking like looking at a silent movie and at the same time hear the sound of glass breaking, but not be an integrated experience of a glass breaking? There are many well investigated cases of sort of the opposite where vision and sound are excessively integrated -for example seeing a certain shade of blue will cause you to experience a certain sound (or conversely, for example a sound makes you experience green etc.) Tell me more. I would like to see how I can understand what your describe in my "realtime simmulation model" of perception. My first impulse is to guess it is closely related to multiple personalities - have you ever thought anything along those lines? Or perhaps related to the "alien hand syndrom" - where your hand (typically) is doing something on its own - not under your control. Initiatally I tend to see, if I understand what you are describling as "incomplete perceptual integration." How often and how long does it occur? anything known to increase the chance of the experience? like being tired, sleepy, drunk, sick with fever, tense, etc.
no never had either of those (although i did find myself driving somewhere with no idea where i was going or why but thats related to my anxiaty disorder) It doesnt really happen with single incident things (like a glass breaking) it mostly happens with speach and mostly with recorded speach (like watching TV) but it does sometimes happen when im talking to someone Actually its really irritating because i then have to conect the two kind of manually and it focus on it rather than on what im watching never actually told anyone about it before because its not really a problem (its just an irritant like having an itch) I mentally KNOW that what is being said and what is being SEEN are the same thing but i get them as 2 seperate events at the same time
Buckaroo Banzai, there's an interesting article on artificially induced senses here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/esp_pr.html
Interesting ref. I am very familiar with Paul Bach-y-Rita's earlier "tactile vision" work - we have exchanged letters and it is mentioned in ref 1 of my published text from which my post: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1294496&postcount=52 is derived. There is one thing, very important, which your link fails to emphasize, but does have subject do. The ability to adapt one sense (usually some part of the body's normal tactile nerve net.- Paul used the back and stomach areas for his "tactile vision.") to give the non-tactile EXPERIENCE normally provided by another the SUBJECT MUST BE IN ACTIVE CONTROL . For example, you can present many hours of 2D tactile stimulation corresponding to a 2D camera’s output someone else is moving around to show the room etc and it will just remain a tactile experience. Let the subject control where the camera is looking for a few hours, even if he is remains seated but more quickly if he is walking around, then it ceases to be perceived as tactile and becomes "visual experience" (admittedly of low resolution). This fact has really been known for more than 10,000 years, but not understood as such. The blind man, guiding himself with a stick, does not experience the tactile sensations in his hand that the stick makes. - He experience the 3D world discovered by the tip of the stick contacting parts of it. Likewise, you do not experience the "retinal tingle" of light making retinal nerves discharge - you experience the 3D world "out there." There is an interesting and closely related effect in kittens. Cats must have active exploration with vision during a very short "critical period" (only a couple of weeks, as I recall) a few weeks (days? - I forget) after birth or their visual system will not develop correctly. Two kittens, in the critical period were separately placed into baskets, one at each end of horizontal beam with a pivit in the center - sort of a "merry-go-round." Only one of the kittens could touch the floor, via holes for its legs. It made the merry-go-round rotate by walking. BOTH KITTENS HAD EXACLY THE SAME VISUAL EXPERIENCE DURING THE CRITITICAL PERIOD. (The surrounding circular wall was just uniform vertical stripes.) Only the walking kitten developed the "line detectors" in V1 that Hubble and Wiesel got the Noble prize for discovering - I.e. the passively transported kitten never developed the ability to see / process vertical stripes (or much else as I recall -was functionally blind for life.) Summary: If YOU do not actively use a sense, even a sense for it is normal use, when you should be learning how to, then you not only will "lose it", you never will even acquire it. This is a real, unfortunately common, problem for children with "LAZY EYE" - Some kids are actually using only one eye - the other one probably is not even pointing in the same direction. Usually this is possible to correct (covering the "good eye" for hours usually will work) but ignorance of this makes many adults not have normal bi-ocular vision.
