again trust people who stop us and ask for directions on university campuses?
Of course, experiencing these effects for yourself is far more powerful than reading about them. If you go to Professor Simons’s Web site, http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/media/Boese.html, you can view videos of his research, including the 16 experiments discussed above. However, you’ll want to keep a close eye on the site. It has the potential to change at any time.
Through a Cat’s Eyes
A young man stares at a movie screen. Restraints hold him in his chair. Small clamps keep his eyes pried open. He cannot blink. He must continue to watch as scene after scene of graphic violence plays on the screen.
Fans of Stanley Kubrick will recognize this scene from his movie A Clockwork Orange . The main character, Alex DeLarge, is subjected to a treatment called Ludovico aversion therapy, designed to transform him from an unruly thug into a nonviolent, productive member of society. The treatment causes him to be crippled by nausea if he so much as thinks about violence, but it leads to tragic consequences. When released, Alex discovers he is powerless to defend himself against his numerous enemies, who duly take revenge on him.
Twenty-one years after the release of Kubrick’s film, a strangely similar scene played out in a University of California laboratory—with one major difference. In Alex’s place was an adult cat.
Researchers led by Dr. Yang Dan, an assistant professor of neurobiology, anesthetized a cat with Sodium Pentothal, chemically paralyzed it with Norcuron, and secured it tightly in a surgical frame. They then glued metal posts to the whites of its eyes, forcing it to look at a screen. Scene after 17 scene played on the screen, but instead of images of graphic violence, the cat had to watch something almost as terrifying—swaying trees and turtleneck-wearing men.
This was not a form of Clockwork Orange –style aversion therapy for cats. Instead, it was a remarkable attempt to tap into another creature’s brain and see directly through its eyes. The researchers had inserted fiber electrodes into the vision-processing center of the cat’s brain, a small group of cells called the lateral geniculate nucleus. The electrodes measured the electrical activity of the cells and transmitted this information to a nearby computer. Software then decoded the information and transformed it into a visual image.
The cat watched eight different short movies, and from the cat’s brain the researchers extracted images that were very blurry, but were recognizably scenes from the movies. There were the trees, and there was that guy in the turtleneck. The researchers suggested that the picture quality could be improved in future experiments by measuring the activity of a larger number of brain cells.
The researchers had a purely scientific motive for the experiment. They hoped to gain insight into “the functions of neuronal circuits in sensory processing.” But the commercial potential of the technology is mind-boggling. Imagine being able to see exactly what your cat is up to on its midnight prowls. Forget helmet cam at the Super Bowl; get ready for eye cam. Or how about this—never carry a camera again. Take pictures by blinking your eyes. It would work great unless you had a few too many drinks on vacation!
5. SOUND
The Mozart Effect
Mozart has a new hangout. No longer relegated to the dusty stereos of classical-music buffs, he can now be heard drowning out the sounds of crying babies and squealing Teletubbies at the local nursery, or blasting from high-end toys and crib mobiles.
Why has Mozart become so popular with the under-five set? The reason traces back to the startling results of a 1993 experiment performed by Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw, and Katherine Ky at the University of California, Irvine.
In the experiment, thirty-six college students each tried to solve three sets of spatial-reasoning tasks. A typical task consisted
Of course, experiencing these effects for yourself is far more powerful than reading about them. If you go to Professor Simons’s Web site, http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/media/Boese.html, you can view videos of his research, including the 16 experiments discussed above. However, you’ll want to keep a close eye on the site. It has the potential to change at any time.
Through a Cat’s Eyes
A young man stares at a movie screen. Restraints hold him in his chair. Small clamps keep his eyes pried open. He cannot blink. He must continue to watch as scene after scene of graphic violence plays on the screen.
Fans of Stanley Kubrick will recognize this scene from his movie A Clockwork Orange . The main character, Alex DeLarge, is subjected to a treatment called Ludovico aversion therapy, designed to transform him from an unruly thug into a nonviolent, productive member of society. The treatment causes him to be crippled by nausea if he so much as thinks about violence, but it leads to tragic consequences. When released, Alex discovers he is powerless to defend himself against his numerous enemies, who duly take revenge on him.
Twenty-one years after the release of Kubrick’s film, a strangely similar scene played out in a University of California laboratory—with one major difference. In Alex’s place was an adult cat.
Researchers led by Dr. Yang Dan, an assistant professor of neurobiology, anesthetized a cat with Sodium Pentothal, chemically paralyzed it with Norcuron, and secured it tightly in a surgical frame. They then glued metal posts to the whites of its eyes, forcing it to look at a screen. Scene after 17 scene played on the screen, but instead of images of graphic violence, the cat had to watch something almost as terrifying—swaying trees and turtleneck-wearing men.
This was not a form of Clockwork Orange –style aversion therapy for cats. Instead, it was a remarkable attempt to tap into another creature’s brain and see directly through its eyes. The researchers had inserted fiber electrodes into the vision-processing center of the cat’s brain, a small group of cells called the lateral geniculate nucleus. The electrodes measured the electrical activity of the cells and transmitted this information to a nearby computer. Software then decoded the information and transformed it into a visual image.
The cat watched eight different short movies, and from the cat’s brain the researchers extracted images that were very blurry, but were recognizably scenes from the movies. There were the trees, and there was that guy in the turtleneck. The researchers suggested that the picture quality could be improved in future experiments by measuring the activity of a larger number of brain cells.
The researchers had a purely scientific motive for the experiment. They hoped to gain insight into “the functions of neuronal circuits in sensory processing.” But the commercial potential of the technology is mind-boggling. Imagine being able to see exactly what your cat is up to on its midnight prowls. Forget helmet cam at the Super Bowl; get ready for eye cam. Or how about this—never carry a camera again. Take pictures by blinking your eyes. It would work great unless you had a few too many drinks on vacation!
5. SOUND
The Mozart Effect
Mozart has a new hangout. No longer relegated to the dusty stereos of classical-music buffs, he can now be heard drowning out the sounds of crying babies and squealing Teletubbies at the local nursery, or blasting from high-end toys and crib mobiles.
Why has Mozart become so popular with the under-five set? The reason traces back to the startling results of a 1993 experiment performed by Frances Rauscher, Gordon Shaw, and Katherine Ky at the University of California, Irvine.
In the experiment, thirty-six college students each tried to solve three sets of spatial-reasoning tasks. A typical task consisted
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