The five senses have various amazing abilities
face illustration (pexels.com/Lola Russian)
Humans generally have 5 senses (some have 6 senses). Even though we use our senses every day, we usually tend not to think about it too much unless an illness, injury, or other problem interferes with our senses.
However, did you know that the five senses are not as simple as we think and are even more complicated than we think? There are various amazing facts about what our senses can do that you may not have known before. Here are seven amazing things about our five senses that you need to know.
1. When you’re distracted, you can look and miss something right in front of you
eye illustration (pexels.com/Wojtek Pacześ)
Most of us tend to think very highly of our visual abilities to perceive our surroundings. We think we can see and be aware of things or events that are happening right in front of us. However, it is actually very easy for us to be deceived by what we see in distracted situations.
One easy example to prove this statement is through an experiment that was conducted by a psychologist on a group of students. They were asked to watch a video of a person throwing a ball back and forth. The students were so focused on counting passes that they didn’t notice that a man in gorilla clothing was walking through the pictures and stopped to smack him in the chest. This is called inattentional blindness and is a well-known phenomenon among psychologists.
2. Diving too deep can damage your senses and can make you disoriented
diving illustration (pexels.com/Elaine Bernadine Castro)
Diving is a fun adrenaline activity for some people. However, you also need to pay attention to the depth you dive. Even for professional divers, they will be equipped with complete equipment and accompanied by other fellow divers considering the risks of danger that can arise when diving at quite extreme depths.
The deeper you dive and the greater the pressure you get, the more concentrated the air you breathe from the tank. If you don’t breath carefully, it’s easy to inhale too much nitrogen. This will slow down cognitive processes and can cause confusion. This is why some very experienced divers can become so confused by their own senses that they end up not being able to notice which is up and which is down.
Also Read: 7 Organs that are Damaged the Fastest by Smoking, Horrified!
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3. Alcohol warms our body while robbing our body of heat
alcoholic drink illustration (pexels.com/Pixabay)
Drinking alcoholic beverages is believed to be one of the best ways to warm the body during the cold winter season. Not surprisingly, in subtropical or cold countries, most people will warm their bodies by drinking a few glasses of alcohol. It’s true, alcohol can have a warm effect on the body.
However, drinking alcoholic beverages in an emergency is highly discouraged. The reason for this is that alcohol sends blood to the extremities and quickly warms the body, but this rush also quickly dissipates heat in the body.
4. An anechoic chamber can let us hear things we normally wouldn’t
anechoic chamber illustration (pexels.com/ThisIsEngineering)
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to have absolutely no visual or sound feedback at all, then there’s an experimental room where you can experience it. That place is the anechoic chamber. Anechoic chambers eliminate all sound and some are built to remove all light as well.
The interesting thing about this room is that when people can’t hear, they usually hear things that aren’t there. Or some even claim to hear their own lungs or other internal organs working. In anechoic chambers designed to deprive vision as well, some people report having visual hallucinations that aren’t there. Researchers believe that this may be because our brains are so used to feedback that when we don’t receive feedback, our brains create something instead.
5. Proper use can make smell a powerful memory trigger
nose illustration (pexels.com/Pixabay)
One sense that we often don’t think to use as tools is smell (olfactory). However, smell actually serves a very useful purpose that most people don’t know about. Smell is believed to be the most powerful memory trigger and if you can use it properly, you can increase your ability to remember important things.
There’s a relatively easy way to practically do this. When you’re studying for a test, you can make sure to use an aromatic or lip balm that has the same smell that you used during the test. You can increase your power of smell tricks by studying for the test in a room that closely resembles the environment, tables, and displays to improve your memory even further.
6. Some blind people can use sound waves to echolocate
illustration of woman helping blind man on pedestrian bridge (pexels.com/Eren Li)
As we know, someone who cannot see tends to experience increased function in other senses. One of them is the sense of hearing. Even though they cannot see, with their sharp sense of hearing, they can continue their activities like normal people.
Some blind people claim to learn to use their echolocation abilities to an extraordinary degree. They rely on sounds around them to judge objects and directions.
Also Read: Getting to Know Synesthesia, a Unique Phenomenon That Involves the Five Senses
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2023-06-23 04:46:00
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