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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."
"Aboriginal tribesmen somehow sensed the impending danger of December's tsunami in time to flee to higher ground before the first sign of water"
No, they fled to higher ground after they saw the water level drop knowing that it would come back up the same amount that it dropped.
I suggest you RTFA.
I did - expecting to read exactly what you expressed. I was pleasantly surprised.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
Amazing how moms develop that "eyes in the back of the head." A sudden silence, absence of noise or motion around the house, and you just know the toddler is unravelling the toilet paper or eting out of the dog's dish (hey, it looks like Cheerios), or leaning over to retrieve a toy from the edge of the swimming pool. This extends to the tiniest facial expressions that tell you your kid's lying or troubled about something, or you notice the cookie jar lid is slightly awry, or someone got into your purse and didn't close it quite right, or a thousand other little signals. It probably helps the species survive.
I can't explain the tsunami warning phenomenon, but a lot of subtle perceptions lie close to the surface, and I think there's a scientific explanation for everything.
...that the aboriginals weren't just following the animals?
It's probably not "wildlife" in the general sense, but some small set of animals whose physical senses will play up whenever the earth undergoes strenuous subterranean activity. The rest of the animals - and aborigines - just haven't lost the habit of paying attention to each other.
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While I personally believe in a Sixth Sense. I remember reading that Indian tribespeople avoided the tsunami for two reasons:
1) Their land was not deforested and the trees slowed down the onslaught of the waves.
2) An ancient legend warns them to seek higher ground when the ground shakes.
Thus, all of them survived.
In a report on NPR, (and I can't get more specific because I was driving), it was stated that there are little used nerve endings in our knee cartilage that evolved specifically for the purpose of detecting earth tremors. I can remember one time in my life when I sensed a very faint earth tremor (I live in a geologically stable region) and I sensed it through my knees, as I recall (I confirmed it via a news report later). Tribal people, living in a quiet setting, are probably more attuned to the sensations delivered by these nerves. Also, if their ears are very keen (not damaged by headphones, machinery, and too-loud speakers, as mine are), perhaps they could detect infrasonic sounds associated with an earthquate of the extreme magnitude of that one. Animals certainly are very good at detecting infrasonics, so the tribal peoples could have noted animal movements prior to the tsunami.
Or at least, similar actions can be explained without inventing a sixth sense.
It's basically a combination of these two things: your skin is much more sensitive than you realize, and that sense is not nearly as accurate as you think it is.
To see this, get two friends to help test this sense. You will stand (or sit, whichever) in the middle of the room, blindfolded and wearing ear plugs, and one friend will stand behind you at a designated spot, being careful not to breath on the back of your neck. The other friend will blow a loud whistle - loud enough to hear through the earplugs - occasionally and at each whistle blow you will need to say if someone is behind you or not. Make sure that your friends choose whether to stand behind you or not before each whistle blow by using some random source, such as a coin flip or dice roll.
If this "sense" does not completely disappear when you've eliminated sight and sound, then retest while wearing a coat with a hood, or something else to completely cover your arms, back, and neck.
I have found myself that during the winter I can navigate around in complete darkness without bumping into things because I "sense" them about half an inch before I'd bump into them. It's not a sixth sense - it's that the static in the air makes the hair on my exposed legs stand up when I approach most objects. A pair of longjohns kills this "sense" completely.
I've always felt those "five senses" were an overgeneralization. I mean, taste and smell are basically the same thing, aren't they? As I understand it, smell is basically your nose "tasting" molecules captured from the air. Your sense of taste, meanwhile, is pretty hampered when you plug your nose.
;)
Isn't hearing basically a type of interpreted "feeling"-- your inner ear contains small hairs that feel the compression of air, which are then experienced as sound.
Since people are talking about phantom-limb, I think one might also mention the reverse-- the sense that your body extends beyond its normal self-- ie, that weird feeling that you've 'fused' with a car/game/musical instrument so that they feel like an attachment or extension to you-- that you become so comfortable with them that you don't think of the interface between you and that object.
When I'm driving for long periods of time, I do sometimes feel as though the car has become to some effect an extension of my body. To move the car, I don't conciously think that I need to use my arms to turn the wheel, I just kind of will the car to turn, and my arms do what's necessary. I've had this experience with video games as well. In a way, your brain accepts that you've become part OF that object. Another example-- once I learned to type, I no longer needed to think about the mechanics of typing, the words just kind of flow to the screen as I think them.
I guess one's brain just adapts itself to your physical "hookup" and tries to streamline the input and output streams so that they are as efficient as possible.
So, yeah, I agree that the 5 senses idea seems kind of over-simplified. I suspect that whatever your nerves are wired to, after along enough your brain will adapt enough to accept it as a source of "input". I'm sure this has been tried. Does anyone know of an experiment like this one where a person's senses were "extended" via hardware?
And what about that creepy-- and often annoying-- feeling that someone's reading over your shoulder? That "feeling" that you're being watched? What's that all about? Which of the five senses is used to describe THAT?
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I agree with you, both in the claim that this phenomenon is not psudoscience, and that calling it a "sixth sense" is somewhat sensational.
The article spells out the test methodology in detail, and it seems solid.
But I have personal experience with this.
I have had extensive navigation training, first as a pilot, and then later in a military career. The Army in particular had very high standards for needing to know exactly where you were at all times (to within 100m) without the aid of something like a GPS.
So you learn to keep a visualization of your surroundings in your head, and to cross-reference that visualization against whatever tools you have (like a map, compass, or odometer) at regular intervals to keep the internal representation in sync with the real world. After some practice, this becomes second nature - muscle memory stuff.
But there's an odd side-effect, at least there is with me. If I make a wrong turn, miss an exit, or make some sort of navigational mistake, something in my subconscious will pick up on it well before I'm ever consciously aware of it (especially if my conscious is somehow distracted away from navigation) It's hard to put into words... but I will get a profound sense of "wrongness", like an inaudible alarm bell. The more I ignore it, the worse it gets.
I have learned not to ignore it. If that alarm goes off, I'll immediately make navigation the highest-priority mental task - and without fail, I will have just goofed somehow.
Unfortunately, this ability does not convey any other information other than "you are no longer on the planned course". There is a recognition function in there, but no follow-on advisory function. It's still up to conciousness to correct the problem once discovered.
When it happens though... it's really a very odd feeling, and it's quite strong.
DG
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"may be different those those attuned to earthquakes (prior to which I believe even cats and dogs have been shown to get agitated)"
I can confirm that. We had a medium-sized earthquake down in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand when I was a kid (big enough that it was mildly frightening, not big enough to break anything major) and about thirty seconds before the first shock hit our cat went apeshit trying to get out of the house. It got outside, bolted off down the driveway and found itself a bit open space to run around in. We all went outside to watch, and then the first shock hit.
Quite interesting.