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

Haha!

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a feeling this article was coming.

Re:Haha!

[Xeo 024]

You're a subscriber?

Not another pseudoscience story

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

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!

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.

Of course, they couldn't very well interview

[Snarfangel]

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

Re:Stop with the damn "paranormal" stories!!!

[NoseBag]

I suggest you RTFA.

I did - expecting to read exactly what you expressed. I was pleasantly surprised.

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.

How do we know...

[astroblaster]

...that the aboriginals weren't just following the animals?

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.

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:Tsunami

[Ithika]

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.

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"?)

Only Five Senses?

[VValdo]

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