The other sides of the napkin - On visualization and other mental represntations

Last IS class we discussed the great effect that visualization has on our perception. In short, it has been suggested that simple drawings, sometims on the other side of the napkin, could explain more effectively, intuitively and rapidly complicated things that sometime could be too trying to explain them using only words.

That approach, although sounds very compelling, assume that we are all coding and decoding our senses information more easily and effectively using visualization. Meaning, when we hear someones story about a carriage full of cabbages we immediatly picturizing it in our minds (the brain create simulations of the story). And therefore the information is easy to retrieve by using relevant visual cues.

But, are we all using the visual modules so extensivelly? Is visualization is always the preferable or default way of codint and decoding the environment?

According to the NLP theory (Neuro linguistic Programming) People may have and use different Representational systems (also known as sensory modalities) as their lead infromation processes mechanism. The main representation system is linked to one the senses - Visual, Auditory or Kinesthetic. The other two senses, gustatory (taste) and olfactory (smell), which are closely associated, often seem to be less significant in general mental processing, and are often considered jointly as one.

The lead representational system is reflected by the way people are tends to think to themseleves and by their everyday language. For example, Einstein credited his discovery of special relativity to a mental visualization strategy of "sitting on the end of a ray of light", and many people as part of decision-making talk to themselves in their heads.

In this way people may choose different way of expressing their ideas

The one that use Visual representational system as his prefered one may say:

• "I see what you mean"
• "You have shown me a bright idea on how to proceed and I would like to look into it further".
• and will probably use more of: see, look, bright, clear, picture, foggy, view, clear, focused, dawn, reveal illuminate, imagine, hazy, an eyeful, short sighted, sight for sore, eyes, take a peek, tunnel vision, bird’s eye view, naked eye, paint a picture

On the other hand, the Auditory one may prefer to say

• "You have told me of a way to proceed that sounds good and I would like to hear more about it."
• “I can’t hear what you are saying”
• “This doesn’t sound right.”
• And use more of: hear, tell, sound resonate, listen, silence, deaf, squeak, hush, roar, melody, make music, harmonize, tune in/out, rings a bell, quiet as a mouse, voiced an opinion, clear as a bell, give me your ear, loud and clear, purrs like a kitten, on another note

Kinethetic -

• "You have handed me a way to proceed that is on solid ground and I would like to get more of a feel for it. "
• “I can’t grasp what you are saying”
• “I don’t have a feeling for this.”
• Common/ prefered words in use: grasp, feel, hard, unfeeling, concrete, scrape, solid touch, get hold of, catch on, tap into, heated argument pull some strings, sharp as a tack, smooth operator, make contact, throw out, firm foundation, get a handle on, get in touch with, hand in hand, hang in there

The actual thing behind it is that the way we communicate with each other can become far more effective if we only pay attention to the represntational system of the other person and use the language that fit that system.

In my opinion, although most of the people representational systems are indeed visual one (around 50-60%), there are many others (40-50%) that are using different way of decoding information, and therefore it could be even more efficient to use different ways other than drawing visualizing your ideas and try to use more auditoric ways and words to appeal, create rapport and influence your listener.

Subliminal influece

Its all about Information isnt it? Everything meaningful to us only if we can grasp it.

Not neccessarily being able to consciously thinking about it but only to percieve it with our senses. In other words if there is something out there that is not able to facilitate any electrical currents in our brain - its just does not exist. Well... at least at the moment it sounds logical and reasonable to us to assume that...

But what about all the tons of information that we do absorb everyday and that does not enter our conscious mind? All the colours and pictures wee see every day and all the conversations we are forced to hear... Are we saving all this information somewhere? Could it be of important to us in the future? and if so, how you/your brain decide what is important and what is not?

Obviously Perception is not the same thing as noticing. We can perceive things and respond to them, without noticing their effect, or even their existence. Why should this be possible ?
Our brain didn't evolve to serve strictly as a faithful recorder of images, but as a guidance system for our survival. As a result, it records things as faithfully as is useful, and distorts them when it is not useful (or whenever he retrieve a memory). Our sensory systems evolved to be very flexible in interpreting what we perceive, so that we can respond quickly and adaptively to changes around us.

So yes, the brain is forced to store tons of uneeded information (and data) of which we constantly being exposed to. So the most interesting question is - can all the information we percieve without notice influence our future desicions and judgements that we will make?

The answer is absolutely yes! And its influence on our behaviour is way more than we intuitively assume. all under the what is known as Subliminal perception/stimulation/influence.
It seems that there are at least five basic phenomena of subliminal stimulation:

1. Mere Exposure Effect -- Exposure to an image without awareness predisposes us to prefer that image over others.

2. Poetzl Effect -- Words or images perceived without awareness appear in altered form in imagery and dreams some short time later.

3. Affective Priming -- Exposure to an emotionally compelling image without awareness causes us to respond emotionally without knowing why.

4. Semantic Priming -- Exposure to a word without awareness tends to bias our perception of subsequent words for a fraction of a second.

5. Psychodynamic Activation -- Exposure to certain kinds of fantasy images or suggestion without awareness can influence mental state or psychosocial adaptation in a meaningful and persistent way.

The New York Times has a great article on how our actions and decisions can be subconsciously 'primed' by the world around us. The article brings some examples based on recent scientific findings:

• Psychologists at Yale altered people’s judgments of a stranger by handing them a cup of coffee. The study participants, college students, had no idea that their social instincts were being deliberately manipulated. On the way to the laboratory, they had bumped into a laboratory assistant, who was holding textbooks, a clipboard, papers and a cup of hot or iced coffee — and asked for a hand with the cup.

  That was all it took: The students who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot java.

• New studies have found that people tidy up more thoroughly when there's a faint tang of cleaning liquid in the air; they become more competitive if there’s a briefcase in sight, or more cooperative if they glimpse words like "dependable" and "support" — all without being aware of the change, or what prompted it.

One of the fascinating (though sometimes disturbing) things about subliminal influence is the possibility to embeded it within sophisticated commercials. In the following video Derren Brown, a british psychological illusionist, demonstrates the use of such subliminal manipulation on advertising experts:

sources

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/health/psychology/31subl.html?ei=5090&en=62f9b092a91bc6dc&ex=1343534400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2699/is_0006/ai_2699000639/
http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2007/08/the_modern_science_o.html
http://www.realmagick.com/articles/49/549.html
http://howtheychangeyourmind.blogspot.com/

The hermaneuitic cycle

Last IS class I was introduced to a new term - Hermaneuitic cycle as an infinite way of looking. Whenever you read or observe things you learn something new.

"Hermeneutics," from Greek hermêneuô, "to interpret or translate" (from the messenger of the gods, Hermes), is the theory and practice of interpretation, originally the interpretation of texts, especially religious texts. The "hermeneutic cycle" is the process by which we return to a text, or to the world, and derive a new interpretation -- perhaps a new interpretation every time, or a new one for every interpreter. It is clear that this happens all the time. We can understand a book, a movie, etc. a little differently each time we read or see it.

I found this term as one that can be linked to two other different terms:

The first is – Fractals, or The fractalistic way of nature:
For many years I was fascinated by the fact that there are similarities in the patterns and morphology of totally different things in nature. For example, the Solar system is roughly as the atom structured, and the galaxies are as nautilus. It took a while until I was introduced to what the scientists called - fractals.
A fractal is defined as a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity. Because they appear similar at all levels of magnification, fractals are often considered to be infinitely complex (in informal terms).

Basic fractals can be made by repetitive simple geometric steps. For example:
Start with an equilateral triangle, replaces the middle third of every line segment by create a new equilateral triangle "bump". Keep repeating it to infinity, and you get yourself a fractal (known as Koch snowflake).

The nautilus is one of the most famous examples of a fractal in nature. The perfect pattern is called a Fibonacci spiral.

Snow flakes are another beautiful example of fractals in nature.

A special type of broccoli, this cruciferous and tasty cousin of the cabbage is a particularly symmetrical fractal.

So the question is, how come that as more as we explore the world we always tend see and find the same general pattern no matter how deep and close or how high and vast we are looking? It seems that there is like a fractlistic charachteristic of nature and no matter how deep you dig you will always come up with more observations and questions… However, it seems that although everything looks similar and may have the same shape and form its actually different in the details and depends on the observer! That’s where the quantum mechanics effect begins.

The second thing is therefore the link to some of the findings from quantum mechanics that described the influence of the observer on the reality.
For almost a century physicists are amazed by the fact that in all the most careful and precise experiments it appear that the mesurement equipment, the fact that someone is observing on the experiment – change the behaviour of the system! therefore influenced the results. Today, most of the scientist and philosophers on quantum theory claim that the actual thing that happened is – that the conscious mind of the scientist influence the behavior of the system!
The best explanation to the subject is by Dr. Quantum (taken from “what the bleep do we know"):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

This kind of influence sounds sometimes like relating to mystical or predjiuce phenomena like evil eye… however, the quantum theory is highly accepted today among scientists never failed to predict experiments results (in the atom scale).


In my opinion, the hermeneutic cycle is only one aspect/discovery that religion scholars found out (and philosophers formulated into a theory) that includes more fundamental inner aspects of nature as can be revealed from natural science and quantum physics.

Sources

Making sense of hermeneutics -
http://epress.anu.edu.au/info_systems/mobile_devices/ch06s02.html

Foundationalism and Hermeneutics
http://www.friesian.com/hermenut.htm

Fractals –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal

17 Captivating Fractals Found in Nature
http://webecoist.com/2008/09/07/17-amazing-examples-of-fractals-in-nature

Backup your soul!

A brain–computer interface (BCI), sometimes called a brain–machine interface, is a direct communication pathway - transferring information - between a brain and an external device. BCIs are often aimed at assisting, augmenting or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions. But today, some scientists are playing with the idea of actually using this technology to keep our memories and experiences even motoric skills in an external hard drive..

Today, the existing technology enable us to connect electrodes directly into the brain (of any mammal) and record the activity of a specific area. Then, from the electrical pulses than has been recorded the experimenters are able to analyze and conclude about the inner brain processes that are taking place in that specific area

These kind of devices became more and more common in the last years and being used for various implications. The first system known as the BrainGate Neural Interface System, consists of an array of electrodes (around a 100) that record neural activity from the motor cortex of the brain. Signals from the implant are decoded and processed by a computer, allowing them to be translated into movement commands.

• Converting information into speech - Eric Ramsey, 26, has locked-in syndrome, in which people are unable to move a muscle but are fully conscious. Ramsey, who suffered a brain-stem stroke at the age of 16, has an electrode implanted into a brain area that plans the movements of the vocal cords and tongue that underlie speech. The neuroscienctists team that are taking care of him has developed models that predict how neurons in this region fire during speech. They used these predictions to translate the firing patterns of several dozen brain cells in Ramsey’s brain into the acoustical building blocks of speech.

• Control the movement of a prosthetic limb - Matthew Nagle, 25-year-old man paralysed from the neck down has a computer-linked implant placed in his brain that enables him to operate devices just by thinking about it. Matthew has learnt how to use a computer open email and control a TV using the power of thought can also move objects with a robotic arm. Watch him on this amazing video:

By using the exact same principle scientists are now using electrodes in order to create the reverse effect: Stimulating the brain by electrical pulses and execute specific operations. This has been extensively studied on animals in the last decades and recently successfuly tested on humans! Here are some of the very famous Examples:

• Cochlear implants - is an electronic device that is surgically implanted into a deaf person chochlea and provide him a sense of sound. As of April 2009, approximately 188,000 people worldwide(!) had received cochlear implants. The device usually includes a microphone which picks up sound from the environment, a speech processor which selectively filters sound to prioritize audible speech and sends the electrical sound signals through a thin cable to the transmitter, the transmitter transmits the processed sound signals to the internal device which includes an array of up to 22 electrodes wound through the cochlea which send the impulses directly to the auditory nerve.

• Artificial eyes - sometimes called Bionic eye is an experimental visual device intended to restore functional vision. There are many kind of devices that has been tested in the last years and are rapidly improved. Excellent video:
  

• Deep Brain Stimulation -Parkinson desease is one of the most common neurological disorders that has severe effect on the patients everyday life. By inserting electrodes to a certain area in the patients brain and continuesly stimulating it, the patients are able to control their movement capabilities and extremely reduce the tremor and paralysis. The method - Deep brain stimulation - has dramatically changed the lives of many patients with uncontrollable tremors. Patients often can resume normal activities, such as feeding and dressing themselves, and can have active and fulfilling lives. The need for anti-tremor medications is often reduced or eliminated. Animation that shows how it works and an example of patient before and after treatment:

A glance to the future

What about Inserting more complex information directly to our brain? What if we could stimulate the brain and teaching it/us a totaly new things..? just imagine the possobilities of having tons of information directly to your grey matter in no time!! : you could... "Read" tons of books and watch all movies ever made in 1o Mhz.. , you could play piano, violin or drums in less than a n hour.. or acquire all the martial arts skils and be able to do all the Keanu Reeves paalulim tricks in real life! Its all about information isnt it?

One of the most fascinating question I have recently heard was: could we one day be able to "download" specific data/information/knowledge from our brain into a flash drive? and if we could, why not downloading all our memories to a hard drive and by that simulate our brain activity and keep our entire soul eternal?

Futurists says that 2050 immortality will be within our grasp:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/may/22/theobserver.technology

Source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%80%93computer_interfaceRay Kurzweil on how technology will transform us:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ray_kurzweil_on_how_technology_will_transform_us.html http://www.physorg.com/news180620740.html http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/05/23/brain.download/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/may/22/theobserver.technology
http://blogs.discovery.com/good_idea/2009/06/downloading-data-directly-into-your-brain.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6368089.stmhttp://blog.taragana.com/science/2009/12/16/paralysed-man-successfully-controls-speech-synthesiser-with-thought-951/
http://www.jumpintotomorrow.com/?p=2821
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/12/14/locked.in/index.html

Its all in your brain - Some similarities between computerized IS and the human brain

Information System is quite a broad area of study that mainly refers to computer-based technology. When using the term, people are usually refers to the process of acquiring data, storing it and performing various data analysis.

However, even from a first sight, it seems that there are similar lines between computerized information systems and another very complex "information system" - the Human Brain.

Most of the brain researches todays tend too look at the human brain as nothing but a very sophisticated and extremely complicated computer… the computerized ability of the brain is so that until now the largest and fastest computers in the world can not imitate even the 1 years old child brain capability.. The secret is that the brain doesnt contain only one processor but billions of them that works in parallel. The human brain contains about 10 billion nerve cells (10^11). On average, each neuron is connected to other neurons through about 10,000 synapses. In that way the brain's network of neurons forms a massively parallel information storing and processing system. This contrasts with conventional computers, in which a single processor executes a single series of instructions. In the brain each neurons is actually perform as an independent computer hence be able to sore amount of data and able to effectivelty analyze the environment.

In here, I will try to stress out some of the similarities and differences of the charachteristics of and termonilogy that is being used in computerized information systems with that being used in Neuropsycology and Psychophysics. I chose to specifically focus on Memory.


Lets start with the similarities:

In General, computerized information systems includes the following capabilities:

1)Computation - Perform high-speed, high-volume, numerical computation.

So is the human brain.. In terms of the functions, both are used for mathematical calculations, carrying out complex algorithms and to storing of crucial information.

2)Communication - Provide fast, accurate, and inexpensive communication within and between organizations.

The brain submodules provide parallelic computation beetween each module. The human brain contain module/specific area for categorized information and specific analysis processes. For exampla, there are specific areas for producing movements, sensing touch, producing speech or visualizing objects. Since the information about the world is stoered in our memory the memory it has to be stores in a very efficient easy to retrieve way. There are evidence for the brain to codifed and store the ïnformation"in semantic folders.

3)Automation - Automate both semiautomatic business processes and manual tasks.
Riding a bike, driving a car, eating breathing walking.. Most of our daily motoric procedures are unconscious. That means that the required sequences or programs are somehow already coded in the brain.

4) Storage - Store huge amounts of information in an easy-to-access, yet small space.
Storage of information in the brain is done by strenghening synaptic connections, activation of specific areas for short time (Short term memory), or morphological changes in the neurons structures (long term memories). There are evidence that the information is codified in a kind of "semantic folders" that are situated in the same brain structure/area. Famous example is of a category specific deficits following a brain seizure.

5) Access - Allow quick and inexpensive access to vast amount of information, worldwide.
The brain needs only sandwiches and cup of coffee and it works!

6) Knowledge - Facilitate the interpretation of vast amounts of data Enable collaboration anywhere, any time.

7)Competitiveness - Increase the effectiveness and efficiency of people working in groups in one place or in several locations, anywhere.

(Based on lecture 2 PPT)


Some more similarities:

8) Combining components
Both work by combining the processes of several components and parts to perform their tasks.
I.e. A computer consists of many many parts, including a motherboard(which itself would is made up of many parts), the disk drives, the processor, graphic cards and many more ... all of which has its own roles in the computer's processes.
Like a computer, the brain is formed out of parts. Besides having the left and right hemispheres, there are also parts of the brain that take care of emotions, mathematical calculations, body CO-ordinations and many other tasks needed for our daily activities.


9) Eletrical signals
Both work by transmitting "logic signals" to each of their parts. Signals are both electrical
i.e. A computer works by using binary ("on"/"off" logical signals known as "bits", put together as "bytes" to represent data.) To communicate internally between components, represent information and store data. In a way, neurons in the brain are either "on" or "off" by either firing an action potential or not firing an action potential.

The face that the brain operates by using a "simple"electrical current has a in electrical stimulation techniques (see one of my next blogs).

10) Upgrading and Evolution
Both can change with time. (the brain evolves, while the computer upgrades with technological advances)
i.e. When any computer gets outdated, there are always options To upgrade, parts To replace faster newer models To choose from. The brain of modern man is found To be significantly larger than those of 1.7 million years ago.
Newsweek article "The first Wanderers" (22/5/2000 issue): May, 2000 a team of scientists uncovered two 1.7 million year old dmanisi skulls of Homo ergasters, notably smaller with only with 780cc of capacity compared with the 1500cc of modern man's skull capacity; proof of the human brain's evolution)


So.. what are the differences?


Compensation ability -
The first and probably the most importatnt difference in my opinion is the Brain plasticity. The brain, unlike any computer or network, have a miraculous ability to compensate and change his modules activiry after damage. This unique charachteristics - Brains plasticity - is not fully understood and a subject to extensive research.
for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSu9HGnlMV0


In contrast, most programs and engineered systems are brittle: if you remove some arbitrary parts, very likely the whole will cease to function.