Study Points to Sixth Sense in Humans

Ben Sullivan writes "St. Louis researchers say there's something to the notion of a 'sixth sense' in humans. A part of the brain known as the cingulate cortex, they've found, likely combines multiple, sometimes unconscious data streams to come to conclusions and send warning signals to the conscious mind. Example: Aboriginal tribesmen somehow sensed the impending danger of December's tsunami in time to flee to higher ground before the first sign of water."

Comments

heh

[Phil246]

It would be more useful to know precisely what triggers it, and why - then saying it merely exists.

Im sure most people have at one point in their lives for an unexplainable reason (till now i guess) done something other then what they wanted to - and was better off because of it.

Duh

[Reality Master 101]

Your sense of balance in your inner ear is your sixth sense (it's a sense of gravity). It just doesn't get any credit.

Re:Duh

[Dun Malg]

Your sense of balance in your inner ear is your sixth sense (it's a sense of gravity). It just doesn't get any credit.

Yeah, the whole "five senses" thing is crap from ancient greek philosophy. It's more accurate than their "four elements", but it's still not correct. There are numerous other senses. Balance (as you mentioned), sensed by the motion of fluid in the inner ear; proprioception/kinesthesia (as another poster mentioned), sensing body position; There are several "internal" senses-- hunger, full bladder, etc.-- as well. Basically, anything that your nervous system consciously registers (internal or external) is a sense. Technically, that tingling feeling you get just before a lightning strike during a thunder storm could be called your "sense of lightning". At best, those five senses Aristotle and his contemporaries enumerated could be called "the five most obvious external senses".

Ugh

[Dachannien]

Calling this a "sixth sense" is very misleading. The normal five senses - sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, for those few who don't already know - involve the intake of information through specialized organs or tissues (eyes, ears, skin, etc.) in addition to the processing of those stimuli. This so-called "sixth sense" is simply the subconscious reprocessing of the same information obtained by the regular five senses (and that description misses the real point of the discovery anyway*), and so it hardly qualifies as a sense.

* The point of the discovery is that the region of the brain discussed in the article helps to determine, based on past experience and the current situation, whether something is a bad idea or not.

Also, from the article:

[shreevatsa]

In addition to what I just said, I also read TFA and found this:

Researchers provided study participants with a series of blue or white cues and asked them to push one button or another depending on the direction of arrows. Brain imaging suggested that an area of the brain had learned to recognize that blue cues indicated a greater potential for error, thus providing an early warning signal that negative consequences were likely to follow their behavior.

The rest of the article says essentially the same thing -- the brain learns to recognise a pattern of making mistakes, not that is able to sense impending danger before it happens or whatever.
The slashdot summary needlessly sensationalised this simple fact.

Re:Tsunami

[AngryAzul]

Although it does seem that aboriginal people were forewarned, this is more responsibly attributed to their tradition of paying close attention to wildlife. While it is not well understood, animals seem to be more sensitive to the subtle environmental changes that precede events like earthquakes and tsunamis, and it's very smart of these people to take notice when the animals all flee to higher ground. BBC News article about this subject: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4144405.stm

Re:Not another pseudoscience story

[Zocalo]

No, they recognised the signs, there was even an interview with some of the tribesmen on TV where they explained this. In a similar vein there was a story about a young girl of who noticed that the sea had gone "all funny", realised that it might be what her geography teacher had told them about tsunami the previous term and got her family to flee. In both cases a "sixth sense" had nothing to do with it; it was just recognising the available signs for what they were and acting accordingly.

Re:I've always known about this

[jwcorder]

You could have grabbed it. It would not have shocked you. Unless you touched another one of the wires or you were grounded some how. Asphalt shingles or or clay tiles will insulate you enough that you can hold onto that wire. I do it all the time when I clean my gutters out.

They headed the warning signs

[tod_miller]

Even CNN was able to report this diligently. They passed on knowledge through their generations that retreating water was a sign of disaster, so when the waters went out (whatever the technical term is) they all scarpered.

I am sure the brain does have sub systems that try and trigger responses from us, like when we tune into a baby crying or other things, I am sure that our senses are more sensitive than we realise, but mostof it is filtered out.

Sounds like headline grabbing terminology bending.

But saying it is a sixth sense does not mean that IT KNEW MORE than what was being told to it by the 5 senses we do actually have (perhaps we can like pigeons sense magnetics also).

So please, like robotics, nanotech and every other buzz word that gets recycled, make sure you really are saying what you are saying.

Re:Offtopic...but IMPORTANT

[slonkak]

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<script language="javascript"><!--
var dc=document; var date_ob=new Date();
dc.cookie='h2=o; path=/;';var bust=date_ob.getSeconds();
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date_ob.setTime(date_ob.getTime()+43200 000);
dc.cookie='he=llo; path=/; expires='+ date_ob.toGMTString();} // -->
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I assume that firefox is coded to find any

<script>

tags then decide what they do and whether your preferences say to block that particular action or not. However, this site has javascript creating javascript. The original script function actually writes the popup script to the page, but in a round about way. Notice this:

dc.write('<scr'+'ipt language="javascript" src="http://media.fastclick.net');

It prints the word script in 2 parts, thus Firefox never finds an instance of the word SCRIPT to block it. But how does it not block the originating script? The originating script is only using javascript's print function. Nothing harmful, as far as Firefox is concerned, until now. Looks like someone should inform the Firefox writers and have them make a pre-javascript engine to find out what the javascript does before it runs it... Just my 2 cents.

Re:Every mother knows this

[Finuvir]

When people say we only use 10% of our brains they are technically most likely correct but very misleading. As you read this you're using the parts of your brain that control eye movement, word recognition, and sentence parsing. As I type I'm using the parts controlling finger movement, eye movement, hand-eye coordination, lexical memory, grammar, syntax.

I'm not using the part that lets me recognise someone's mood from their expression because I'm alone in this room right now. I'm not using the parts that let me plan my route through a location that I have a mental map of in memory as I would when walking to the shop, since I'm ust sitting still.

The brain is composed of many interacting parts with quite specific jobs. We use the parts we need to use at any time. It's a myth to think that we could be more productive if we could somehow harness the unused "brain power" and use 100% of our brains at once. In fact we're more productive when we use only the parts that are directly relevant to the task at hand. There are people who tend to use more of their brains at any one time than the rest of us. We call that phenomenon ADD, attention deficit disorder.