Last update: 11 September, 2017
The human mind always surprises us. Science continues to study it, but all its deepest secrets are not yet known. The more scientists study it, the more they come across new puzzles.
We start from the idea that we know reality through the mind. We delude ourselves that being "rational" brings us closer to the truth. However, various experiments show that this is perhaps not the case.
The senses are the bridge between what is understandable and what is not.
August Macke
There are many ways to deceive the mind. Several studies have shown that it is possible to induce someone to perceive non-existent realities and to distort existing ones. The mind, therefore, is not only concerned with organizing the world of reason, but also with populating the world of fantasy. Below we will tell you about the five experiments that prove this.
1. The mind and the illusion of the hand of marble
In 2014, a group of neuroscientists from the University of Bielefeld (Germany) conducted a curious experiment on the perception of the mind. The scholars gathered several volunteers asking them to sit down and place their hands on the table in front of them. Then, they gently hit their right hand with a hammer. At the same time, there was the sound of a huge hammer hitting a block of marble.
A few minutes after, all the participants felt that their hands were stiffer, heavier and harder, as if they were made of marble. Their brains had combined tactile and sonic perception and, since sonic perception was stronger, it prevailed creating the illusion of the marble hand.
2. The prisoner's dilemma and temperature
The prisoner's dilemma is a hypothetical situation proposed in game theory that proves that the best solution for people involved in a competitive problem is for everyone to cooperate in an organized manner.
It is assumed that there are two complicit prisoners. They are separated and invited to betray each other. Several alternatives are proposed: one is offered complete freedom as long as he betrays the other or that no one betrays the other and that both receive only one year of sentence.
This dilemma was reproduced as a real experiment, one of the prisoners was given a hot object in his hand, the other a piece of ice. The same situation was reproduced with other pairs of prisoners. The result was always the same: the prisoner with the hot object in his hand was less selfish. Temperature seems to affect the way our mind processes information.
3. Prolonged isolation
Prolonged isolation has been shown to have important effects on the mind. A significant case is that of Sarah Shourd, who was held in solitary confinement in Iran for 10.000 hours. Sarah began to have frequent hallucinations so much that she could no longer understand if she was the one screaming or someone else.
Prolonged isolation, together with the dark, causes severe alterations in the perceptive capacity of the brain. In particular, the sense of time and body rhythm is lost. The daily cycle can increase to 48 hours, 36 of activity and 12 of sleep.
4. The McGurk effect
Science has shown that the senses work together. They are a kind of "mix". What we hear is not independent of what we see, touch or smell. The mind unites these perceptions and constructs global meaning. For example, it has been shown that if a person sees the needle of a syringe, he will feel more pain during the puncture or injection. It is not so strange, therefore, to close the eyes before the sting.
Several experiments have been made on this, with the different senses. In England some volunteers were invited to have dinner in the dark. The meal was a delicious steak, but once the lights were turned on the diners saw that the meat was blue in color and most of them felt like throwing up.
5. The illusion of the invisible body
The human brain confuses reality and fantasy with great ease. A few years ago, in Sweden, at the Research Institute Karolinska was conducted an experiment involving 125 volunteers who were given virtual glasses. Once worn, they saw themselves and next to a person who used a brush on them, with each brushstroke they disappeared.
While watching this scene, one person actually touched them with a brush. The participants felt that they had become invisible. Later they were exposed to a very demanding public and their reactions were monitored: the stress levels were very low. They were calmer because they believed they were invisible.
As you can see, it is not that difficult to deceive the mind. All these experiments show that perceptions of the brain can deviate completely from reality. In this case, we are dealing with physical experiences, but the same is true for abstract experiences. As much as we are convinced to the contrary, we are not as close to reality as we think.
