DailyDirt: Blue-Green Or Green-Blue Crayons?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Human perception can be pretty strange sometimes. People with synesthesia experience some mixing of their senses, so that they can hear colors or taste colors. But the English language even contains some interesting phrases to describe various feelings, such as "green with envy". Here are just a few more interesting examples of sensory perception.

• The vast majority of people are trichromats who can perceive about a million shades of color, but there are also dichromats who see fewer colors -- as well as tetrachromats who can see a hundred million colors. But even if you can see those extra millions of colors, it's a bit difficult to describe them to others in words. [url]
• Movie posters from 1914 to 2012 are mostly blue and orange. The distribution of colors isn't too even, and the spread of the use of blue appears to be growing over time. [url]
• The color of food can really affect how it tastes. Red-colored drinks seem to taste sweeter for some people, and people are pretty bad at tasting flavors when the color of a drink doesn't match its flavor. [url]
• Adults and infants may perceive colors very differently -- with babies seeing colors directly, but adults seeing colors based on language interpretations. Interestingly, some Russian speakers may be able to see more shades of blue than English speakers. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: color, perception, senses, synesthesia, tetrachromats

DailyDirt: Slowly Piecing Together How The Brain Works

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Scientists are learning more and more about the human brain all the time. We've learned a lot about the brain by studying disorders and instances of the brain not working the way it normally does. But there are also new medical imaging devices that allow researchers to take a peek at how normal brains work, too. Here are just a few links about some fascinating brain studies.

• Scientists at UC Berkeley have started to develop a method that could reconstruct mental images using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the brain activity of volunteers. Reconstructed videos aren't exactly high definition reproductions, but they vaguely match up to the videos that the volunteers are shown. [url]
• The placebo effect (for pain) has been shown to involve cannabinoid receptors in the brain. The study suggests that people are capable of creating their own natural opiate-like chemicals with some training. [url]
• After a professor of neuroscience developed synesthesia and started to actually feel sounds, there's a bit more interest in discovering how the sense of touch is related to hearing. Come on, feel the noise. Girls, rock your boys. [url]
• To discover more interesting articles on the human mind, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: brain, fmri, placebo effect, senses, synesthesia