Category: Psychology & Medicine

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Morality

Posted on by Jinavie

People tend to believe that morality is an absolute concept, or that people cannot easily be “turned” away from their values. However, many interesting experiments have proved that our morality may be more easily manipulated than previously thought.

It has been shown that various factors affect our decision making processes. For example, when a subject is near a drawing of an eye, such as a poster, they tend to be more honest and less likely to cheat in an exam. The opposite effect is seen when there is dim lighting, even if it is only slightly dimmer (as in not dark). This can be explained by our subconscious wanting to be moral when seen by others, while acting much more freely when it believes we are hidden (the classic example being babies believing that if they do not see it, it does not exist). Not only are there obvious examples like this, but there are also strange factors such as large trees lowering crime rates, while examples of bad behaviour (such as graffiti or broken windows) elicit bad behaviour on the observer as well. 

The relationship between religion and morality has also been a time-old philosophical question. It has been shown that anything that invokes the image of a deity brings out generous, good behaviour in people, as it plays to the fear element (that someone is always watching and will bring consequences) in the mind. However, there have also been cases such as a police strike in a Canadian town causing mass lootings and a significant spike in crime rates despite the strong religious background of all the people. It is also notable that Hitler and Stalin were both strong Christians, yet their actions are still considered some of the most evil acts in history.

Therefore, it is entirely possible that morality is a learned behaviour that only exists for an effective society, meaning that it can also be twisted by many different factors.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Vertex

Posted on by Jinavie

The vertex, also known as the crown of the head, is the uppermost point on the human body on the top of the head. It is the part of the body that comes out first (usually) during childbirth.

There are some interesting properties regarding this anatomic location.

Firstly, if one places a cellphone on top of their head, they cannot feel the vibration when they receive a call or text message. Almost every other part of the body can feel the vibration, but not the vertex. This is because the top of the skull is not covered by any muscles, which have receptors that sense vibrations. Ergo, no vibrations can be felt.

Secondly, when one places their hand on top of their head, they experience a sudden drop in muscle strength. This applies to the whole body and can be seen through basic activities such as lifting weights or even through arm-wrestling. The degree of weakness can be up to 10~15% of the muscle’s normal strength. 

The reason for this is slightly more complicated. The nervous system remembers trauma and responds to it, such as childbirth where almost everyone (assuming they were born through vertex presentation, the most common) experiences trauma on the top of the head. For example, as labour is quite an intensive procedure, significant pressure is placed on top of the baby’s head as it tries to push out.
Because of this, when pressure or electric signals are exerted on the vertex, the nervous system responds negatively, remembering the trauma from childbirth, and “weakens” throughout the body. This results in decreased force exertion by muscles. The same effect can be achieved when a cellphone is placed on top of the head, as it emits electric signals.

Lastly, the top of the head is not sealed until a few months after birth. This makes a baby’s skull very malleable, and two fontanels, which are gaps between pieces of the skull, remain open for that time. This is seen as “soft spots” on the head which pulsates as there is no bone beneath it.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Ganzfeld Effect

Posted on by Jinavie

To experience this peculiar effect, you require a ping-pong ball cut in half, tape, radio, headphones and a lamp tinted with red light (use cellophane).

  1. Set the radio to an empty station so that only white noise is playing.
  2. Plug the headphones into the radio and wear it.
  3. Place each half of the ping-pong ball over your eyes and secure it with tape.
  4. Shine the red light towards your eyes.
  5. Relax on a couch or a bed for over half an hour.

What you will experience after about half an hour are powerful visual and auditory hallucinations, the result of your brain trying to fill the void created by sensory deprivation. As the brain is in constant need of stimuli, complete deprivation of the senses results in the brain becoming confused, trying to interpret what is not there. It has been reported that people see things such as horses flying through clouds or hearing the voice of dead relatives.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Uncanny Valley

Posted on by Jinavie

(original article by Kingdom of Discord, summarised and modified with permission)

The Uncanny Valley, a term coined by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori, is a theory that the more humanistic a robot (or any object) is, the more humans will feel comfortable with it and show empathy and love towards it. However, there is a point where the robot almost completely resembles a person, yet there is something not quite right. At this point, human response to the robot plummets, even falling below the line of neutrality and instead reaching a point where people become uncomfortable around it, and may even become hostile towards it or be afraid of it.

For example, robots such as C-3PO (from Star Wars) that are humanoid yet obviously robotic are met with love and affection from the audience. This also applies to human characteristics, such as Wall-E who shows human emotions that we can empathise with. 
But when the resemblance becomes too similar, such as a prosthetic limb, computer-generated images (CGI) such as characters from The Polar Express, or zombies, people find that there is something “wrong” and will show negative emotions towards it.
The Uncanny Valley also applies to people, especially those with a physical or mental disability that causes them to slide under the line that society names “the norm”.

There are many theories as to why this phenomenon occurs.
Firstly, the further away from human-likeness an object is, the less likely it will be compared to the “human norm”. But objects in the Uncanny Valley are more likely to be measured against “normal” humans, and thus they will be seen as “inferior”, rather than “superior to normal objects”.
Secondly, using the above theory, it can also be suggested that the primal instinct of avoiding mates with some disfigurement is elicited, causing a natural aversion.
Lastly, it may remind the person of their mortality and the fact that they could become something akin to that, invoking fear. The fear may also originate from the thought that they may become even closer to human beings, thus replacing humanity. This idea is seen in the anime Chobits.

The Uncanny Valley phenomenon is used extensively in the genre of horror movies, as people will relate more closely to human-like monsters such as ghosts and zombies than giant monsters. This will cause them to believe that it is more realistic, resulting in heightened fear. Combined with the uncanny feeling invoked by the closeness to a human, it is a potent method of scaring the audience.
It is also thought that the Uncanny Valley explains certain psychological conditions such as racism and the fear of clowns, as there is a primal aversion to those that are slightly different.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Sensory Illusion

Posted on by Jinavie

The five senses we use to experience the world are simply wondrous. However, thanks to our not-so-perfect brain, these senses can easily be distorted. Illusions are a very good way to show how the brain processes sensory information and there are many fascinating examples.

Almost everyone has seen an optical illusion before, such as Penrose’s endless stairs or the Muller-Lyer illusion. There are countless more examples such as static pictures that appear to be moving and illusions in colour perception (A and B are the same colour). This is caused by the brain not recording images like a camera, but rather processing visual information and reconstructing an image. There are four main types of optical illusions: ambiguous (e.g. rabbit or duck), distortion (Café wall illusion), paradoxical (Penrose triangle) and fictional (only seen in hallucinations or by schizophrenics).

(Do you see the dolphins? Children cannot see the man and woman because they cannot comprehend it, whilst adults cannot overpower the sexual image)

Like vision, every other sense can be fooled in a similar fashion.
Auditory illusions that distort what we hear are fairly common, a good example being the infinitely ascending Shepard scale (which are just a series of the same ascending octave scale). Also, the McGurk effect shows how the brain uses a multimodal approach where it involves both hearing and vision when listening.

There are also tactile illusions. For example, if you pull your top lip to left and the bottom lip to the right, then prod the middle of the lips with a pencil, it feels like there are two. However, the more famous case is of the Phantom Limb, where an amputee’s brain still believes that the limb is there, causing it to “feel” the limb or even feel pain.

The other two senses aren’t as famous in terms of illusions, but definitely exist.
Smell is easy to fool through chemicals as it is the physiological method of detecting smell. It also exhibits olfactory fatigue where it becomes desensitised to a strong smell.
Taste illusions are more fascinating and easily seen. They are caused by two or more tastes forming a synergy to produce a completely different taste. For instance, mixing barley tea and milk produces a coffee milk taste, while cucumber and honey tastes like melons.
A more fascinating illusion involves Miracle Fruit Berries, which contain a substance called miraculin that distorts the taste of sourness to sweetness.

This shows how we can fool all five senses, and learn more about the mysterious organ that is the brain.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Dunning-Kruger Effect

Posted on by Jinavie

People are very interesting animals that, despite possessing the most powerful brain out of all the species, exhibit many strange psychological phenomena. For example, in psychology there is a well-known cognitive bias (the act of subconsciously making bias while thinking) called the Dunning-Kruger effect. 
This effect states that people who are unskilled are more likely to fail to recognise their incompetence and rather overestimate their capabilities. It is most prevalent in cases where someone first learns a skill, such as singing at the karaoke, then believing that they are extremely skilled or an expert in the field when it comes to learning knowledge.

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This strange effect is caused by the belief that learning is an easy process. For example, it is simple to understand the basic principles of science, but it takes far more effort to understand the deeper, more complex pieces of knowledge to become an expert in the field. However, people are deluded into thinking that the time required for a beginner to become an amateur is equal to the time for an amateur to become an expert. This can be easily explained through the analogy of a role-playing game, where “levelling”, or gaining more experience, is much easier in the earlier levels compared to much later. For example, the time taken to go from level 1 to 30 may be equal to the time taken to go from level 30 to 33.

The Dunning-Kruger effect scientifically explains the proverbial frog in the well (who believes he is the best, not knowing that there is a bigger world). Also, this effect extends to those who are actually skilled, as it causes them to believe they are not as skilled and rather underestimate themselves. This is often due to them understanding that it is much more difficult to master a skill and that they are “nowhere near” that point. 

These two factors combine to produce a strange paradox where the less skilled are less likely to believe they are incompetent and rate themselves as more skilled than the expert. This is frequently seen on the internet or during debates and arguments.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Rabbit Or Duck

Posted on by Jinavie

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What do you see in the above picture? A rabbit? A duck?
This image shows a phenomenon first described by an American psychologist, Joseph Jastrow, in 1899 and tells us a few things about the brain’s way of processing visual information.

Firstly, this picture is neither a duck nor a rabbit. However, our brain tries to match it to what it has seen in the past, and in that process (for example) it decides it must be a rabbit. Then when the same picture is presented, it decides it must be a duck, because the picture appears to match both figures and the brain randomly decides it can only be one of them.

This experiment proves that the human brain does not simply record visual information on to film (memory), but instead processes it first then records it. This is the reason we see UFOs in clouds, the face of the Virgin Mary on burnt toast or a rabbit on the moon. This phenomenon is called pareidolia, when the brain gives a meaning to what is actually a random visual stimuli. Due to this, we cannot totally trust what we see.

Also, this picture teaches us a valuable lesson regarding our perception. From one point of view it is a rabbit, but from another it is a duck. This kind of scenario is seen countless times in life, such as a song you hated that suddenly sounds great, or a guy you once thought was a tool appearing wonderful all of a sudden, or a girl you never even considered becoming attractive one day.
Like this, perception can not only be affected by optimism and pessimism, but even small things like emotions or random events.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Joint Cracking

Posted on by Jinavie

Quite a few people are able to bend their fingers, neck, back, wrist or any other join to make a cracking sound. But how does this phenomenon, that symbolises violence and brings a satisfying feeling, come about?
A joint (for the purpose of simplicity, this will only refer to synovial joints, or diarthrosis) is formed from two bones, covered by articular cartilage, being linked by an articular capsule (lined with synovial membrane) and ligaments. The joint space is filled with synovial fluid, which is a lubricant with a smaller coefficient of fraction than any man-made lubricant.

The synovial fluid is the substance that is most involved in the process of cracking a joint. It has carbon dioxide and nitrogen dissolved in it, which leaves the fluid if the pressure inside the joint falls, such as when it is stretched or bent. This causes a bubble to form, which quickly snaps the ligament surrounding the joint, making a whipping sound. Also, the bubbles then collapse as the pressure rises again, adding a popping sound. These two combined are what makes joints crack. It is also why there is a refractory period where the joints do not crack again for a while, as the gases must be redissolved in the synovial fluid.

Children are taught not to crack their fingers because it will thicken their joints and deform them. However, no research data supports this and instead states that it is a myth. Dr Donald Unger received an Ig Nobel prize (an award given for strange discoveries and triumphs in ten different areas) for cracking the joints in only his left hand and not the right for 50 years. He too found that the negative effects were minimal and had no substantial effect on arthritis.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Symptoms of Love

Posted on by Jinavie

When in love:

The heart thumps loudly and rapidly,
The mind becomes disoriented and chaotic,
The pupils dilate and the eyes become round,
The jaws lose strength and the mouth opens wide,
The face, especially the top of the ears and cheeks, flushes,
Oxytocin and dopamine release a flood of pleasure,
The body leans towards the other and copies their motions,
Non-verbal communication takes over and the two talk passionately.

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Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Twins

Posted on by Jinavie

Twins are categorised into either maternal or paternal twins.
Maternal twins are formed when an embryo splits into two (or more sometimes) in the early stages, and grow separately. In these cases, the two genetically identical babies sometimes even share a placenta. This fact makes them very useful in a research context (Nazi Germany used them extensively in unethical biomedical experiments).
As paternal twins come from separate egg and sperm, they are born as normal brothers and sisters. Because of this, it is also possible to have a boy and a girl (maternal twins have the same gender).

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In a standard population, less than 5% are twins. However, according to some researches, it is posited that almost 25% of all pregnancies are twins. They hypothesise that out of all these twins, many cases involve one of the twins dying prenatally. If this happens, the corpse is absorbed by the mother and the other baby to recycle the nutrients. Sometimes a half-absorbed foetus is found embedded in the placenta (vanishing twin), or found in the body of the other twin years after birth (fetus in fetu).

A more interesting hypothesis from this research is that in these cases, one twin is left-handed while the other is right-handed.
Therefore, left-handed people may have absorbed their right-handed twin in the womb and survived.
This theory is validated by cases from nature. Many animals tend to birth two offsprings, then help the stronger one to survive. It is essentially nature’s insurance system.

Another interesting fact related twins is about a place called Candido Godoi, Brazil. This place is famous for being “the twin capital of the world”, due to having 18 times the rate of identical twin births compare to anywhere in the world. This means that one in five pregnant couples can expect double the bundle of joy.
The strange fact about this place is that there is a theory that the unnatural twin-birth phenomenon may be linked to a Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele (a.k.a. the Angel of Death) who fled to this town around 1963. It was around then when the phenomenon started occurring. However, it is still uncertain whether he was involved in any way.