under construction
sorry for the inconvenience

In the News . . .

• ‘I see colours you cannot perceive or imagine’ -- MPRNews (21 March 2016
  
  
• Take the Test: How Well Do You See Color? -- Apartment Therapy
  
  • Read the intro page. Scroll down to: More Info: X-Rite and click on the red X-Rite to take the test.
  • jb andersen's results
    
    
• Belief in Precognition Rises When People Feel Helpless -- LiveScience (07 August 2013)
  
  

• Chinese, Americans Truly See Differently, Study Says -- National Geographic (22 August 2005)
  
  
• Genes to Cognition Online -- Dolan DNA Learning Center, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
  
  
• Mind Lab -- JST Virtual Science Center
  
  
• Science and Consciousness Review -- focuses "on interpreting the rapidly growing scientific literature, from sources like Science, Nature, Consciousness & Cognition, and Psyche."
  
  
• The Mind is a Collection -- Sean Silver
  
  

Forthcoming at a Later Date

Review

• W.H. R. Rivers and Mead, Mead-Freeman Review
• Units of Analysis (.pptx)
• Three Major Perennial Debates (.pptx)

This week we're going to have a look at
an Introduction to
Cognition: Per-ception / Con-ception
by looking at how the process sometimes goes askew

• Synesthesia: Derek Tastes of Earwax
  (re-scheduled because of Mardi Gras)
• Visual Agnosia

cognition:

per-ception / con-ception

. . . an introduction

In order to understand personality one must understand cognition In order to understand cognition one must understand per-ception and con-ception in order to understand conception one must understand language in order to understand language one must understand culture in order to understand culture one must understand "culturally constituted behavioral environments" in order to understand "culturally constituted behavioral environments" must one have look at the Culture and Personlity work of A. Irving Hallowell ?     Bear Ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere (1926) The Role of Conjuring in Saulteaux Society (1942) Culture and Experience (1955) Contributions to Anthropology (1976) in order to understand the work of A. Irving Hallowell one must have look at Anishinabe / Ojibwa / Chippewa Peoples for e.g., Jimmy Jackson (Week 11 Day 21) Paul Buffalo (Week 11 Day 22) Anishinabe Curing (Week 12 Day 23) "Windigo Psychosis," one of many "Culture-Bound Syndromes" (Week 09 Day 18) -- Tim Roufs

Go to the "Magic Eye" page and look at the Image of the Week until you see the 3D image. Click on "Need Help Viewing 3D?" if necessary.

Magic Eye^©

Optical Illusions

• How man senses do we have?
  
  
  • Wha's the nature of the concepts/percepts beyond the five "standard" senses?
    
    
• With visual agnosia there were percepts but no visual concepts
  
  
• With synesthesia there were percepts and concepts, except that the concepts got mixed up and didn't "match up" properly with the percepts
  
  
• What about ESP--Extra-Sensory-Perception?
  
  
  • Can we have concepts without percepts?
    
    
• What is the role of whatever is already "in" the brain in concept formation?
  
  
  • Remember the wheat fields in Personality: All About Me?
    
    
  • And, more specifically, what is the role of language in concept formation?
    
    
    • And evenmore specifically, what is the role of linguistic categories (linguistic concepts) in concept formation?
      
      
  • How Can We Stlil Raed Words Wehn Teh Lettres Are Jmbuled Up? -- ScienceDaily (15 March 2013)
    
    
    
• Optical Illusions
  • Percepts are formulated into erroneous concepts
    
    
    
• Correct Percepts and Concepts of non-existent "things"
  • e.g., one's mental processing of a galaxy in the sky
    
    
    
• Pure fantasy
  • No percepts, but concepts
    
    
    
• "Phantom Pain"
  • residual concepts, but no current concepts, but current pain
    
    
    
• How can both the percepts and concepts be manipulated to create altered states of consciousness?
  
  
  • Altered States of Consciousness (ASC)
    
    
    • ASC Typology
      
      
      
• Culturally Constituted Behavioral Environment (CCBE) -- A. Irving Hallowell

An Excellent lecture on smell, from the Nobel Conference 46 Making Food Good Conference -- Gustavus Adolphus College (5-6 October 2010)
(archives are available online at <http://gustavus.edu/events/nobelconference/2010/archive.php>)

Linda Bartoshuk
Fifth Lecture: "Variation in sensation and affect: We live in 'different taste worlds'"
view video on-line

One of the five main characteristics of American Anthropology is fieldwork, "a primary research technique, involving “participant observation," which usually means living among the people one is interested in learning from and about. And fieldwork, almost above everything else, requires attentive observation and recording of information.

Much of what we are going to do for the rest of the semester is "fieldwork" via video materials from around the world. Before we get into the video-intensive part of the course (towards the middle and end), take the Selective Attention Test (below) developed by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. This should give you a little insight into the nature of observing—which lies at the very heart of anthropological fieldwork.

See also "An Important Note on Videos and Visual Anthropology".

First, take the . . .

Selective Attention Test
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo>

Read and follow the directions carefully.
(Be sure to also count the bounce passes.)

Be sure to try your very best to follow the instructions.

(It's short, less than a minute and a half).

When you are finished with the Selective Attention Test, watch . . .

The Monkey Business Illusion
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY>

(It too is short: 1:42)

Again, read and follow the directions carefully.

(And as with THe Selective Attention Test, be sure to also count the bounce passes.)

(4) After you have taken Simon and Chabris' tests, think about how what you learned from them about perception might be applied as you view the videos for the rest of the semester as well as the cultural behaviors in real life as you roam the world thereafter

The main purpose of this exercise is to sensitize you to the fact that everyone views things selectively—”quite naturally, and maybe even by necessity. And one's culture plays a huge role in what one "sees" and focuses on (and what one doesn't see and focus on). American men, for e.g., most often do not "see" many details of clothing, color, and personal stylistic adornment (read hair styles, nail treatment, cosmetic adornments and the like).

To view things as a trained observer as anthropologists must do when they're in the field "doing" anthropology one must almost constantly be aware of this natural / cultural tendency to perceive things selectively, and try to compensate for it by paying attention to items not otherwise selected for, while at the same time being careful "not to miss anything".

Hopefully, this exercise will make you just a little more critical in the way you look at things—”and especially the class videos—”for the rest of the semester (and maybe even for the rest of your life, for that matter).

You are not expected anything to submit anything—no reaction, or report, or forum posting. This is a "re-vision" activity, and it should benefit you in performing well in the exams and overall for the course. And hopefully it will also help on your way to having a genuine anthropological perspective on life in general.

Other Materials from Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons . . .

"Demonstrations, videos from our research, videos of us speaking, etc. Dan's YouTube Channel includes most of these videos as well as favorites from around the web that are related to or mentioned in our book. You can view more videos on his personal website."

Other Videos --  the invisible gorilla

The Book . . .

 


. . . discusses six "everyday illusions" . . .

Wilipedia

 Christopher Chabris

  Daniel Simons

 Inattentional blindness

Other Works of Interest

• Optical Illusions WebPage
  
  
• Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking Fast and Slow. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.
  
  
• Macknik, Stephen L., Susana Martinez-Conde, and Sandra Blakeslee. Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions. NY: Henry Holt and Company, 2010.
  
  
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  
  
  • Incerto -- an investigation of luck, uncertainty, probability, opacity, human error, risk, disorder, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand
    
    
    • Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets. 2^nd Ed. NY: Random House, 2008.
      
      
    • The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility". NY: Random House, 2010.
      
      
    • Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. NY: Random House, 2014.
      
      
    • The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms. NY: Random House, 2016.
      
    
    
• Malcolm Gladwell
  
  
  • The Tipping Point. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2000.
    
    
  • Blink: the power of thinking without thinking. NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2005.
    
    
  • Outliers: The Story of Success. NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2008.
    
    
  • What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures. NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2009.
    
    
  • David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2013.
    
    
  
  

Per-cept--ual and Con-cept--ual Cog-ni[to]--tive Processes

Percept--ual and Concept--ual Cogni--tive Processes

REM: Cognition = Perception + Conception

Cogni-tion = Per-cept-ion + Con-cept-ion

Cogni-tion = Percept-ion + Concept-ion

.

REM?:

per-son-ality
through - the sound - the essence or quality of


Dionysus,
Greek Theatrical Mask

Cognition = Perception + Conception

Cogni-tion = Per-cept-ion + Con-cept-ion

Cogni-tion = Percept-ion + Concept-ion

.

.

Species Specific
Behavioral Environment

(The original B-EYE site seems to be off of the web. An archived site, courtesy of Pandora: Australia's Web Archive, can be found at <http://pandora.nla.gov.au/nph-arch/1999/O1999-Sep-6/http://cvs.anu.edu.au/andy/beye/beyehome.html>

• Image #1. / Original of Image #1 .
• Image #2. / Original of Image #2 .
• Image #3. / Original of Image #3 .
• Image #4. / Original of Image #4 .
  • B-EYE-- Andrew Giger

Original Site:		Image #1 / Original of Image #1 Image #2 / Original of Image #2 Image #3 / Original of Image #3 Image #4 / Original of Image #4
		B-EYE -- Andrew Gige

Database on how 'bees see world' -- BBCNews (13 December 2010)

 

• See the World As Your Pets Do
  
  How does your pet experience its environment Understanding some differences between ... facts how animals perceive reallity See World Your Pets ... isn necessarily same what our pets do Here latest ... we may observe our pets shouldn dismissed simply ... animal human senses can offer insight world Sarah Wilson Brian read story (From October 15, 2006 Parade Magazine)

Temple Grandin, professor at Colorado State University and autistic savant, used her unusual abilities to improve the tools of livestock farming. -- Exploring Temple Grandin's Brain -- Discover (13 March 2013) The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow: The world's most famous person with autism uses her unusual cognitive abilities to reduce animal suffering -- BBC (49 min. 2006) "This fascinating program introduces Temple Grandin, who is autistic. She is also a leading professor in her field—animal science. Temple has shattered expectations of what autistic people can achieve, and her latest theory is just as groundbreaking. She believes the autistic mind is closer to the animal mind than the typical human mind. Temple describes herself as someone who thinks in pictures, in the same way animals do. Just as animals can find it hard to learn general principles, autistic people can have difficulty understanding abstract concepts that cannot be visualized. But they can also exhibit specialist skills beyond the capability of people with normal brains." A BBC Production. Exploring Temple Grandin's Brain -- Discover (13 March 2013) What Do Animals Think?: Temple Grandin says animals think like autistic humans. She should know -- Discover (01 May 2005)   "If brain tissue is damaged or does not develop fully, the ventricles—vessels filled with cerebrospinal fluid, shown in blue in this image based on neuroimaging work—expand to fill the space. Temple Grandin’s enlarged left ventricle is a sign of abnormalities in her left hemisphere, which typically handles language, and may account for the difficulties she has with processing words." -- Exploring Temple Grandin's Brain -- Discover (13 March 2013)

 

Animals Eyes
-- An "Topic in Depth" report from the NSDL Scout Report
(1 November 2002 -- Volume 1, Number 21)

Sex Specific
Behavioral Environment

Do men and women see color the same way,
or are women more sensitive to variation and intensity?
—Leo Campbell, Portland, Ore.

The only difference is that color blindness affects
about 20 times as many males as females.
(2 March 2008)




• Creamer Color Chart -- John Creamer, M.D.
  
  




RICK SAPHIRE'S TEST



 

'Somatopsychological' factors drug-induced states "beer goggles" "'Beer goggles' effect explained" -- BBC News "Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder'" -- BBC News beer warning

 

- - -

"Special Effects"
Environments

Shrek 3D

Shrek 3D

Barack and Michelle Obama, along with their party, watch the commercials during Super Bowl XLIII in the White House theatre using ColorCode 3D. Wikipedia

Pocket stereoscope with original test image. Used by military to examine stereoscopic pairs of aerial photographs. Wikipedia

The Stereo Realist, which defined a new stereo format. Wikipedia

3D Football

Consumer Reports

 "Hyperreality" -- Wikipedia

REM: People Live in Multiple Cultural Worlds

• people live in multiple cultural worlds (roles)
  
  
  • sex / gender
  • age
  • ethnicity
  • race
    
    
    
    • Race: Can This Tenacious Concept Be Supplanted ?
      
      
      • continuous dimensions
      • illustrations
        
        
  • class
  • institutions
  • common interest groups
    • "associations"
      
      
• intergroup relations

REM:

• structure
• function
• meaning
  
  
• emic
• etic
  
  
• synchronic
• diachronic

Culturally Constituted Behavioral Environment (CCBE)