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

Higher ground

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the aboriginal tribemen ever go to higher ground when there wasn't a tsunami, or was this the first time they went there?

Aboriginal tribesmen

[shreevatsa]

No, AFAIK, the tribesmen affected by the tsunami (were they aboriginal? I don't know) knew to run to high places for safety not because of any sixth sense, but because of wisdom passed down the generations saying that whenever water in the ocean very quickly receded, it would soon come gushing and flood them. No sixth sense there!

Of course, they couldn't very well interview

[Snarfangel]

the ones that headed for the coast at the first sign of danger.

Sixth sense

[cphilo]

As an ex-cowboy (I'm from Montana), I can tell you that animals have sharp senses, and can find a small spring of water in a 10 square mile desert. If you spend enough time away from the noise, smells and chaos of civilization, you also develop sharp senses and can sense weather changes and natural phenomenon. Once in the city (when I live now) there is so much noise, weird smells and chaotic energy, this ability fades. I have no doubt that the aborigines sensed the Tsunami.

Yeah, for example

[sam_handelman]

I'm able to use my synaesthetic powers to detect complete bullshit!

It's true that there is definitely a region of the brain that manages anxiety - and that all sorts of things can make people anxious - seemingly for no reason!

However, neurotic != psychic. There are no *new senses* under discussion here, just a better understanding of how the brain manages that feeling of impending doom you sometimes get.

Do other mammals have similar brain structures? Yes.

Do they probably use them to avoid danger, incl. forest fires and tsunamis? Almost certainly.

Do we, higher mammals, probably retain whatever hard-coded sensory cues cause our little forest friends to flee natural disasters? We probably do, yes. When someone is in the supermarket and they have a panic attack for no reason, might it be because the kiwi display is triggering the same mechanism that is supposed to make us flee from a tsunami? Maybe.

"In the past, we found activity in the ACC when people had to make a difficult decision among mutually exclusive options, or after they made a mistake," Brown said. "But now we find that this brain region can actually learn to recognize when you might make a mistake, even before a difficult decision has to be made. So the ACC appears to act as an early warning system -- it learns to warn us in advance when our behavior might lead to a negative outcome, so that we can be more careful and avoid making a mistake."

This has nothing to do with psychic powers! Fucking idiot journalists.

More than six already

[ozmanjusri]

We already know we have way more than six senses. The idea that we only have six is one of those enduring fictions which we've inherited as part of our cultural mix.

Just try closing your eyes and touching your fingertips together. That's your sense of location working. Ever fly in an aerobatic aircraft? That strange feeling in your stomach is your sense of acceleration telling you which direction you're being shoved in. There are plenty more, if you care to think about them.

The headline is misleading though. The activity being measured in the tests;

"an early warning system -- one that monitors environmental cues, weighs possible consequences and helps us adjust our behavior to avoid dangerous situations."

is a consequence of analysis, not sensation. It looks like we have mechanism in brains which can reflexively assess and respond to novel dangers.
Quelle surprise...

Re:Not another pseudoscience story

[pVoid]

I agree with you but there is some merit in this. Not enough to make a story called "the sixth sense" though.

All IMHO, the brain is a humongous pattern matching system. It learns by ways of emotional or genetic reinforcment. It might very well be that in fact seeing animals flee, even if they're just walking uphill might trigger a dormant pattern and pop up a completely irrational thought that maybe it's time to go up too.

But this is the equivalent of software. Not an additional hardware function that perceives stuff (the sixth sense). That would be like calling intelligence your 7th sense.

Science beats pseudoscience every time

[dustmite]

Some of the local indigenous people had stories handed down over generations from their ancestors who had also suffered through a tsunami, and from these stories some of them recognized the warning signs and knew what to do. No mystical explanation required in that case.

A good example of the value that even conventional science holds over anything paranormal is the 10-year old British girl who recognized the warning signs from having listened in her geography class, and saved hundreds of lives by warning those on the beach and nearby hotel to evacuate.

By comparison: Even though there are millions of psychics/clairvoyants and other people who claim to be able to predict the future worldwide, not one predicted the tsunami! Remarkable?

This is not to say that there isn't something to the study descibed in the article; animals and aboriginals may all have 'felt' the earthquake (even from far - elephants' feet for example have specially adapted sensors that are very sensitive to vibrations), and just thought it prudent to get out of the way just in case. However the use of the term "sixth sense" implies a paranormal explanation, when in fact you can pretty much bet that the true explanation, whatever it turns out to be, is going to be quite logical and rational. This is perhaps more likely just poor journalism rather than poor science.

(These stories with a 'pseudoscientific bent' seem to reveal a creeping trend away from rational thinking on slashdot, which several years ago used to feel like one of the few good places on the Net where one could get away from that sort of gullible mainstream uninformed discourse :/ Is Slashdot now officially "mainstream"?)

Re:Science beats pseudoscience every time

[Flyboy Connor]

There's been a general dumbing of this forum over the years. Sure, we've always had "First Post!" types here, but I consider them amusing. What once was a technoscience community, with the kind of background knowledge that implies, now includes more than its share of people who discredit science for political, economic, and religious reasons.

That said, the fact that the "debunking" posts usually get modded up, is a sign that the crowd is still predominantly scientifically oriented.

Attention: TFA has nothing to do with psychics

[porcupine8]

So could all of you who are whining about the paranormal and pseudoscience just calm down and read it?

They're using the term "sixth sense" because that's what many people call this ability - and attribute it to psychic, mystical phenomena. They're using the colloquial name for it, but demonstrating what it really is - an ability to subconsciously process subtle clues that you're not even consciously aware of, and use them to determine when danger is coming. The article makes no claims of psychic powers or mysticism or paranormal activity - if anything it's the opposite. It's like showing that people don't get sick because a bad spirit infested them, but because germs infested them. They're still getting sick, but for a real reason.

Re:The aborginals fled after they read the signs..

[ggvaidya]

Are you sure?

1. The deep fish story is a hoax.
   
2. So what are these red-tailed deep water fish turning up off the coast of Kerela?
   
3. The tsunami took place in the morning, and took about three hours to get to the coast of Kerela. Did the fisherman have enough time to go out, find "unusual numbers of rare red-tailed deep-water fishes" and report back to the government offices?

I'm very skeptical.

Re:Pot? Kettle.

[Mattintosh]

First of all, "Black American English" is not a language. It's a dialect marked by (usually) incorrect usage.

But for the sake of whacking your argument upside it's head, let's use this guy's name as an example here. "I be hatin'" could more easily be expressed as "I hate." The subject is the same (I) but the verb is pacified ("be" vs. "hate") in the incorrect case. To properly use a passive ("being") verb in this sentence, you would need the word "am" instead of "be". "I am hatin'."

However, the duration of this act (which is how you justify the use of the incorrect English) can be assumed to be the same. How? If there's a TV show that I hate continuously (every time it's on), then "I be hatin' this TV show" would be no more descriptive than "I hate this TV show". Both convey the meaning that you dislike this show strongly no matter what time or place you are exposed to it, and that you'll continue to feel this way into the indefinite future.

English does not lack the verb tense you speak of. There is no need to make excuses for people that refuse to learn to speak or write properly, or who for social reasons pretend that they know less than they really do.