Posts Tagged → perception
Thoughts influence perception, study finds
It has long been said that a person’s view of the world around them colors their perception, and a new study published in the journal Psychological Science confirms this notion. The findings suggest that a person’s happiness in their life is only limited by their brain potential.
Researchers from the University of New South Wales started by asking participants to visualize a particular image – a colored shape with a pattern on it. The team then showed participants two different images at once, one of which was the image the participants were previously asked to visualize.
The results showed that participants who visualized the initial image with the greatest ease perceived that particular image more dominantly than the other. The researchers said that this shows how strongly a person’s thoughts can influence their perception of the world around them.
"Our ability to consciously experience the world around us has been dubbed one of the most amazing yet enigmatic processes under scientific investigation today,” said Joel Pearson, who led the study. “If we stop for a moment and think about it, our ability to imagine the world around us in the absence of stimulation from that world is perhaps even more amazing."
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Adversity shown to hinder perception
Adversity may actually dull an individual's perceptive abilities and make it more difficult for them to learn from new experiences, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
The findings give particular emphasis to Ilchi Lee's thoughts on brain health. He says that individuals must do all that they can to learn from negative experiences and use this wisdom to overcome adversity. The results of the study show that this is important to achieving a heightened state of consciousness.
For the study, researchers from Weizmann Institute asked participants to listen to a set of tones, some of which preceded an offensive odor. The results showed that individuals were able to easily distinguish between tones that came before a pleasant or neutral outcome, but those that indicated a negative occurrence were not as easily learned.
The researchers said that this shows the negative experience of a bad odor inhibited auditory perception.
While adversity is a constant in nearly everyone's life, learning how to effectively deal with it may be important in perceiving the world in more healthy ways.
