Sensory Perception or Deception?

The Scottish poet Norman MacCaig (1910-1996) describes how “...into my, and your, five ports of knowledge come many cargoes and we should unship the lot.” (MacCaig, 1979, p84) While we have five senses and they bring us everything we know of the world, they can also prove unreliable and deceptive. Our brains can play “tricks” on us, send conflicting messages, and can misunderstand or misinterpret what the senses pass to them. However, for many people the senses can be damaged or manipulated by others causing them considerable difficulties in understanding or coping with the world they inhabit. I plan to examine how sensory perception is not to be depended on, can be unreliable and can be positively reordered by the intervention of others.

For example, it is widely thought that the illusion of depth in illustration was first developed in the Renaissance with Giotto’s ‘Jesus Before the Caïf’. However, Lascaux, a complex of caves in southern France, demonstrates through its cave-paintings that its unknown, prehistoric artists had their own grasp on perspective: they even used the natural curving and jutting of the cave walls to convey depth and movement. Artists have, then been ‘tricking’ our visual perception for thousands of years, from the times of the so-called primitive Neanderthals to the present day. And we seem to like it, as the popularity of, for example, Escher’s visual conundrums testify.

Sight is obviously one of our strongest senses, in use every minute of the day until we fall asleep (but even our dreams operate in a visual world); however, it can be demonstrated that the senses of touch, hearing, smell and taste are equally capable of being deceived. For example, we are familiar with eating a packet of Starburst sweeties without looking at the wrappers; your taste buds might tell you that you are eating something with the flavour of lime but when you look at the wrapper it tells you its flavour in fact is strawberry.

The day to day tricks and illusions created by our brains and senses are very powerful. So what must it be like to be sensorily impaired or deprived. What do we know of the 'pathology' of sensory malfunction? I will look at a number of areas where individuals are faced with significant sensory problems: for example, deliberate sensory deprivation (both willing and enforced); deprivation due to trauma; autism and, finally, the fairly common condition known as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Sensory deprivation is a controversial subject, with allegations the technique has been used in numerous detainment facilities such as, Guantanamo Bay as an interrogation tactic. Thousands of prisoners around the world are kept in solitary confinement, often with a severe level of sensory deprivation. It is thought that sensory deprivation can make people much more open to suggestion . During experiments in this area most subjects would give up non-compliance after 72 hours as the boredom and oppression of the conditions became overpowering. There have also been many experiments of extreme isolated situations (such as living in the Arctic and during space travel). The European Space Agency started Mars500 in 2010, when six ‘astronauts’ boarded an artificial spaceship near Moscow to find out what two years in an isolation facility would do. How someone will cope with isolation may depend on personality type. Results from experiments show that there are increased rates of disturbances of mood, psychiatric disorder, tension between captives, and a disruption of sleep rhythms; extended or forced sensory deprivation can result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts and depression. However, short-term sessions of sensory deprivation are described as relaxing and encourage meditation

Trauma can cause our senses to act irregularly and send mixed messages to our brains. A phantom limb is the sensation that an amputated or missing limb is still there and is moving as normal. Approximately 80% of people who have suffered an amputation experience phantom sensations in their amputated limb, and the majority of the sensations are painful. In the early 1990s, Tim Pons, at the National Institutes of Health, showed that the brain can reorganize itself the if sensory input is cut off resulting in pain and discomfort. Many individuals who have suffered some sort of trauma resulting in a sensory deprivation learn to compensate with the use of their other senses. Dan Kish, a 41-year-old blind man from California has pioneered a bat-style echolocation technique to visualise his surroundings. The technique is being piloted in Glasgow, where 10 children aged 5 to 17 are learning how to build up detailed images of the world around them by clicking their tongue and interpreting the sound as it echoes back. There is emerging evidence that blind people can harness their sense of hearing to interpret reflected sound and create detailed mental images of their surroundings, including the distance, size and density of objects.

Many of those who suffer from a form of autism find it difficult to grasp sensory perception and the depth and pervasiveness of sensory dysfunction. We were all taught that we have five senses from an early age and instinctively understand how these work. People with autism, though, have far more complex senses: they interact and react differently, and recent research suggests they possess an extra two: proprioception refers to the way our body communicates with our joints, tendons and muscles and in children with autism this can malfunction; the vestibular sense refers to a person’s sense of balance and movement and challenges in this area may express themselves in multiple ways, either creating intolerance to or cravings for movement or problems with balance. To complicate matters, people on the autistic spectrum can be hypersensitive (over active) or hyposensitive (under active) to the senses, or both.

ADHD and sometimes cerebral palsy can also pose challenges; people with these conditions can have trouble regulating and focusing their attention. Feurstein’s ‘Tactile Instrumental Enrichment’ program uses cognitive or key thinking processes, one of which focuses on using our senses to gather information to teach intelligence; this has proved particularly successful with children with ADHD. It forces them to limit their attention to one particular sensory process. Feurstein’s program has now been developed to be used with blind children. Initially, pencil and paper were used to teach this new way of learning but, in order to make this accessible to the blind, different shaped tokens were developed and symbols used. It is widely believed that people who lose one sensation compensate with the enhancement of another sensation. With visual perceptual difficulties it is argued that you can compensate for this cognitively. For example, the chef, Jamie Oliver is colour blind but he 'knows' what looks good on a plate and has compensated for his difficulty cognitively by learning what works. We learn to compensate for missing senses.

Despite all of these, arguably, “deficit” sensations, can new developments in sensory perception be used to enrich lives? If we look at developments in the field of Virtual Reality (VR) we can see some hope for this wide variety of ‘patients’.

Virtual reality (VR) as a form of therapy began in the early 1990s. Developed by Dr. Ralph Lamson, virtual reality was used to solve his own fear of heights. It is now widely used to treat a wide variety of sensorily challenged people. In 1996, Dr. Hunter Hoffman of the University of Washington’s Human Interface Technology Laboratory and Dr. David Patterson of Seattle’s Harborview Hospital Burn Centre devised a new psychological pain control technique which relied on diverting attention using virtual reality. Diverting attention is particularly useful in burn pain as pain perception is said to be largely psychological. ‘Snow World’, a virtual reality system that lets users walk through wintry environments and throw snowballs at targets, proved to be an alternative to strong drugs which tended to leave patients dazed and disconnected

Drugs, vibration therapy and acupuncture have been used in the past to help those who have problems with sensing phantom limbs, but a team of researchers at the University of Manchester experimented with a technology of "immersive virtual reality" to combat this discomfort. The researchers reported that phantom limb pain could be relieved by attaching the sufferer's real limb to an interface that allows them to see two limbs moving in a computer-generated simulation.

Virtual reality therapy has also proved useful in treating ADHD. Virtual reality technology allows the child to role-play in a virtual classroom where different situations can be practised and then discussed. The therapist in charge of the virtual reality world can work with the child to improve their concentration skills, as they are able to practise concentrating on specific tasks while different distractions are introduced. They are also able to interact with the teacher and classmates, allowing them to develop social skills and learn to stay on task.

Our senses, however deceptive, can bring us great pleasure but when they malfunction the result can be traumatic. New developments in sensory perception allow us to intercept our senses and take back, a little, control.

Dissertation Proposal

Sensory Perception or Deception?

Norman MacCaig, in ‘As I remember’, describes how, “...into my, and your, five ports of knowledge come many cargoes and we should unship the lot.” (MacCaig, 1979, p84) While we have five senses and they bring us everything we know of the world, they can also prove unreliable and deceptive. Our contact with the world is solely through sensory perception; however, our brains can play “tricks” on us, send conflicting messages, and can misunderstand or misinterpret what the senses pass to them. I plan to examine how we can mistake sensory perception and the effects this has on our understanding and appreciation of the world which surrounds us and which sends these remarkable ‘cargoes’.

It is widely thought that the illusion of depth in illustration was first developed in the Renaissance when it is believed one of the first uses of perspective was in Giotto’s ‘Jesus Before the Caïf’. However; Lascaux, a complex of caves in France, demonstrates through its cave-paintings that its unknown, prehistoric artists had their own grasp on perspective: they even used the natural curving and jutting of the cave walls to convey depth and movement. Artists have, then been ‘tricking’ our visual perception for thousands of years, from the times of the so-called primitive Neanderthals to the present day. And we seem to like it, as the popularity of, for example, Escher’s visual conundrums testify.

Sight is obviously one of our strongest senses, in use every minute of the day until we fall asleep (but even our dreams operate in a visual world); however, it can be demonstrated that the senses of touch, hearing, smell and taste are equally capable of being deceived.

Despite all of these, arguably, “deficit” sensations, can new developments in sensory perception be used to enrich our lives?

The day to day tricks and illusions created by our brains and senses are very powerful. So what must it be like to be sensorily impaired or deprived? In understanding autism, it is difficult to grasp sensory perception and the depth and pervasiveness of sensory dysfunction. We were all taught the five senses from an early age and have a basic understanding of how these work. People with autism have far more complex senses, they interact and react differently, and there are an extra two. Proprioception refers to the way your body communicates with your joints, tendons and muscles. The vestibular sense refers to a person’s sense of balance and movement. To complicate matters, people on the autistic spectrum can be hypersensitive (over active) or hyposensitive (under active) to the senses, or both.

ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and sometimes cerebral palsy can cause similar challenges, people with these conditions can have trouble regulating and focusing their attention. Feurstein’s, ‘Tactile Instrumental Enrichment’ program uses cognitive or key thinking processes, one of which being, using our senses to gather information in an aim to teaching intelligence, which has proved particularly successful with children with ADHD. It forces them to regulate their attention to one sense.

Feurstein’s program has now been developed to be used with blind children. Initially, pencil and paper were used to teach this new way of learning but, in order to make this accessible to the blind, different shaped tokens were developed and symbols used. It is widely believed that people who lose one sensation compensate with the enhancement of another sensation. With visual perceptual difficulties it is argued that you can compensate for this cognitively. For example, the chef, Jamie Oliver is colour blind but he 'knows' what looks good on a plate and has compensated for his difficulty cognitively by learning what works. We learn to compensate for missing senses but the mind struggles to cope with complete sensory deprivation.

Sensory deprivation is a controversial subject, with allegations the technique has been used at Guantanamo Bay as an interrogation tactic. Thousands of prisoners around the world are kept in solitary confinement, often with a level of sensory deprivation. It is thought that sensory deprivation can make people much more suggestible. During experiments in this area most subjects would give up after 72 hours as the boredom and oppression of the conditions became overpowering. There have been many experiments of extreme isolated situations (such as living in the arctic and during space travel). The European Space Agency started Mars500 in 2010, six ‘astronauts’ boarded an artificial spaceship near Moscow to find out what two years in an isolation facility would do. How someone will cope with isolation may depend on your personality type. Results from experiments are that there are increased rates of disturbances of mood, psychiatric disorder, tension between captives, and a disruption of sleep rhythms. Short-term sessions of sensory deprivation are described as relaxing and encourage meditation, however, extended or forced sensory deprivation can result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts and depression. In unusual circumstances our brains and senses can play dangerous tricks on us.

Trauma can cause our senses to act irregularly and send mixed messages to our brains. A phantom limb is the sensation that an amputated or missing limb is still there and is moving as normal. Approximately 60 to 80% of people with an amputation experience phantom sensations in their amputated limb, and the majority of the sensations are painful. In the early 1990s, Tim Pons, at the National Institutes of Health, showed that the brain can reorganize if sensory input is cut off. Various forms of treatment have been experimented with; such as drugs, vibration therapy, and acupuncture to name but a few. A team of researchers at the University of Manchester experimented with a technology of "immersive virtual reality" to combat the discomfort caused by phantom limb syndrome. The researchers reported that phantom limb pain could be relieved by attaching the sufferer's real limb to an interface that allows them to see two limbs moving in a computer-generated simulation.

Virtual reality as a form of therapy began in the early 1990s. Developed by Dr. Ralph Lamson, a now retired clinical psychologist, virtual reality was used to solve his own fear of heights. It is now widely used to treat post traumatic stress disorder, especially in soldiers. In 1996, Dr. Hunter Hoffman of the University of Washington’s Human Interface Technology Laboratory and Dr. David Patterson of Seattle’s Harborview Hospital Burn Centre devised a new psychological pain control technique which relied on diverting attention using virtual reality. Diverting attention is particularly useful in burn pain as pain perception is largely psychological. Snow World is a virtual reality system that lets users walk through wintry environments and throw snowballs at targets. The cool imagery and immersive game-play proved to be an alternative to strong drugs which tend to leave patients dazed and disconnected.

Our senses, however deceptive, can bring us great pleasure but when they malfunction the result can be traumatic. New developments in sensory perception allow us to intercept our senses and take back, a little, control.

Business Plan Presentation

We were the first group to give our business plan presentation. It went remarkably well and I'm glad everyone's hard work came together in the end.

We decided to present our ideas in the form of a powerpoint presentation along with a demonstration of our website. Due to many (not all) of us having a sligh

t phobia of public speaking we recorded most of our presentation, with Andy very bravely explaining the figures side of things on the day and Fiona talking through the website.

During the presentation we thought it would be nice to produce incentives for people to ask us questions. We set up an egg decorating table where those of us not speaking or operating laptops could decorate eggs. This was a little self-indulgent as we enjoy doing things like this! We also gave away chocolate Mini Eggs to anyone that asked us a question. Free chocolate always seems to go down well.

As we had chosen to present first we had no idea what to expect from the other groups so after presenting ours we sat back and enjoyed the others. I found it really impress

ive that a load of art/design students could pretty much single handedly come up with perfectly plausible business plans considering our complete lack of prior knowledge.

We now just have to submit a portfolio of all the work/research we completed to do with the business plan. I'm not going to lie, I'm really glad this is all nearly over but I'm also really going to miss my wee Design Studies group, I think we worked really well together and I feel really lucky to have been in a group with them.

The Business

Our next assignment for design studies is to come up with a business proposal for a business which provides a product or service that will appeal to a Post consumer. This a daunting prospect considering I don't really know much about post consumerism or business.

Before thinking about business ideas we thought it would be a good idea to come up with a profile of a post consumer i.e their age, income, what products or they might use?

Having had a little time to think independently, we brought our thoughts together in the form of a brain storm. We came up with some key points and also individually sourced several different images that we thought represented post consumerism. We then brought this information together in the form of a poster.

We then all met up again and had yet another brainstorming session. We first spoke about the different sustainable companies and products we'd came across and then discussed what ideas we all had for a business. We all got a little carried away with the "no idea is a bad idea" theory and came up with some strange ones. We decided to make things a bit more fun and interesting we would attempt to make one of our strange ideas a (semi) reality.

We settled on 'mail-order chickens'. Basically we would provide fertilised chicken eggs which the customer would then rear into a chicken which they can either eat or they can start making their own eggs or chickens. This seemed very simple and straight forward initially but now that we're properly looking into things it seems there may be some big issues with our big chicken ideas!

Individual Learning Style

For our first Design Studies assignment of 2011 we were asked to complete a survey to ascertain how we individually operate which will in turn aid us in better understanding how we work as a team. After answering a series of questions on subjects such as decision making and team work you were given moderate, low or very low for three categories. These were:

Activists, They involve themselves fully and without bias in new experiences.

Reflectors, They are ponderous about experiences and observe them from many different perspectives.

Theorists, They create complex, but logically sound theories from their adaptations and interpretations of observations.

Pragmatists, They want to see if ideas, theories and techniques work in practice.

My results: Activist - Moderate

Reflector - Moderate

Theorist - Low

Pragmatist - Very Low

Generally I'd say these results are accurate. I believe I am very much a reflector as I tend to work very methodically and tend to like to listen for quite a while during meetings before contributing. I don't think I am quite as much of an activist as indicated as I don't tend to like the "act first and consider the consequences afterwards" attitude. I feel that I might be more of a theorist than my result shows as I as I do like to think logically and work in a step-by-step way.

We guessed what the rest of our groups results would be and surprisingly we were all pretty much spot on. Our group turned out to have a good mixture of outcomes suggesting a good dynamic. Our strongest style was activist. The two aspects we lacked in slightly theorists and reflectors. Claire and myself turned out to have a little bit of the theorist in us and myself and Andrew had a bit of the reflector but we decided as a group that we needed to ensure that we tried a bit harder with these areas to make sure our team is at its most productive. We felt as a group that we needed to record more of what we do and actually review what we record to ensure that we fully understand it.

Dissertation Beginnings

A few weeks into the start of this semester we were encouraged to start thinking about dissertation topics. At that point we were in the middle of our Narrative project in the studio/workshop. I thoroughly enjoyed the narrative project as the topic I chose (OCD) really interested me and kept me motivated. It seemed logical to use this as a starting point for dissertation thinking. During the Narrative project I thought a lot about the senses and what our senses need, what looks pleasing to the eye, what feels good to touch, and possibly even what smells or sounds nice. This initially lead me to consider how our mental health could be improved through our senses. Sensory therapy.

Up until VERY recently I was still going along this therapy and mental health route, however, it's taken a little turn in a new direction. I am now looking at perception and the senses. How our senses and brain work and how they can trick us. Sensory deprivation and synesthesia are important areas which I am looking into. I would also like to do some research into how people with disabilities use their senses and perhaps rely on alternative senses. It's a large and fascinating subject area which I am enjoying learning more about.

To begin with I have looked at many books on perception and the senses and also some on particular senses. Below are two analyses of a couple of very useful books which I think will com in handy.

Introduction to Psychology: Atkinson and Hilgard

Atkinson and Hilgard’s ‘Introduction to Psychology covers all the major areas of psychology from psychological development to language and thought. It examines the theories, research and ideas that support the subject. Due to the large scale of the book I have focused my attention on two chapters in particular: Sensory Processes and Perception.

The chapter, Sensory Processes, talks about which aspects of the environmental information register with our senses and which do not. While the chapter, Perception, addresses what the use of perception is. It is made clear that there is a definite link between the two chapters.

The book consistently relates its concepts to everyday life and draws its information from a wide range of research. There is an emphasis on vision and its ability to obtain information that is at a distance. Vision is discussed at length giving detailed information about seeing patterns, colours and light.

Other senses such as smell and hearing are also looked into in detail. Taste, pressure, temperature and pain are also touched on. There are cutting edge research sections in each chapter. One of great interest is entitled, ‘Where in the Brain Are Illusions?’ by Scott Murray, University of Washington. This looks at how we perceive object size and how our visual system has evolved to interpret a three-dimensional world.

The chapter ‘Perception’ almost carries on from the previous as it tackles how sensory information is processed and used and how organisms process and organise incoming sensory information. The subject of vision is carried through to this chapter and developed. It argues that humans need a constantly updated image fed to their brain in order to perceive, behave and make decisions. Moving on from the previous chapters explanation of how vision works we begin to look at how the information our eyes gather is processed.

We then take a look at attention in vision and hearing. Our senses are constantly bombarded with information and only a tiny amount is relevant. This suggests that the brain must have some sort of screening process.

Localization is a subject I had never really thought of before but is fascinating in its disguised simplicity. This is the need to know where objects are in our environment which involves separating the objects from one one another and from the background. This then allows the perceptual system to to determine the position of the objects in a three-dimensional world.

The cutting edge research section of this chapter talks about diverting attention from burns pain. It is thought that pain perception has a strong psychological component. This section explored what would happen to a patient’s brain when they experienced virtual reality analgesia.

Due to this being a textbook it is a little dry and the language is complex, however, looking at it selectively it is possible to pick out a variety of very useful information. Each chapter ends with a summary of the main points. Diagrams, case studies and examples make this compicated subject far easier to grasp.

Friedrikson, B, Loftus, G, Nolen-Hoeksema, S, Wagenaar, W, Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th Edition, (2009) Italy, Canale

The Man Who Tasted Shapes: Richard E. Cytowic, M.D.

Cytowic’s ‘The Man Who Tasted Shapes’ explores a deeper reality which he believes exists in all of us. Cytowic gives details of two cases of synesthesia and discusses some of the consequences. Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which two or more bodily senses are merged so that the detection of each is mismatched.

The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, Cytowic describes his chance encounter during a dinner party on with the "Man Who Tasted Shapes." Cytowic describes how his host reported that "There aren't enough points on the chicken!" and how this chance comment led to Cytowic's investigations into the neurological phenomenon of synesthesia. The central theme throughout the book is what, if any, relation synesthesia has with normal brain function and what we can learn from it. It allows us to understand something of normal sensory function.

Cytowic’s interest does not begin and end with the brains of synesthetes. He believes that the solution to the medical mystery of synesthesia has complex implications for all of us. And so two main questions are brought forward: What is the nature of synesthesia? and What is its value? He aims to explain not its meaning for the people who have it but the meaning of synesthesia for those of us whom it does not directly affect.

This acts not only as a sort of biography of the man who tasted shapes but as a double biography. Not only do we learn about the two cases neurologically, and about their synesthesia, we are also drawn into an intellectual autobiography of Cytowic. We learn about his thought processes and hi persistence in uncovering the story and the condition over a long period.

In order to explore the biological starting point of synesthesia, Cytowic describes experiments in which he tested how synesthesia was reduced by a daily routine of stimulants such as nicotine and caffeine and depressants such as alcohol. In more intensive investigations of the effects of different psychoactive substances, Cytowic discovered that stimulants, including a dose of amphetamine decreased the strength of synesthesia, while amyl nitrite increased the strength of synesthesia. For example, one subject reported that mint feels like a cool glass column, but that amyl nitrite led him to feel as if he were placing his hand among many glass columns.

In later chapters, Cytowic reported on his efforts to make synesthesia more widely known, on the experiences of many other synesthetes who have contacted him, and how synesthesia affects their lives.

In the second part of the book, entitled "Essays on the Primacy of Emotion" Cytowic presents a number of his reflections on what the phenomenon of synesthesia means for traditional neuroscientific and neurological practice, how irregular findings can lead to major scientific discoveries, and the role that emotion plays in our understanding of the world around us.

Cytowic, R, E, The Man Who Tasted Shapes (2001) New York, MIT Press

Dissertation Beginnings

Having a meeting during the reading week proved difficult, however, the dissertation workshop gave us ample opportunity to share ideas and thoughts.

My previous studio project, The Narrative Project, helped me to identify some interests which I may want to take further. I chose to look at OCD, a mental disorder which causes people to experience intrusive obsessive thoughts and compulsive tendencies. I chose to make a therapeutic piece which played with the ideas of order, disorder and ritual. I really enjoyed this topic and want to take it further but perhaps branching off into other mental illnesses. I'm planning to try to get to grips with a little psychology in order to get my head around it all.

Here is my initial mindmap which I hope to add to as I discover more.