Our Senses Are Not Always to Be Trusted


We know of many optical illusions.

In the following illustration, hold a hand over your left eye and, while looking at the dot,  move yourself closer or further from the screen.  Does the plus sign disappear and you only see white?  That is your blind spot.  Now look at the top edge of the plus sign.  To look as clearly at the bottom of the plus sign do you need to move your eye?  That is how small your focusing ability is.  Not only are your eyes limited, but they actually mislead you into thinking you don't have a blind spot and that you see more precisely than you do.


Your ears also have limitations.  Listen to any clock and what do you typically hear?  Tick tock tick tock.  But what is the noise actually?  tick tick tick tick.  You can even change how you hear the clock: tock tick tock tick, etc.  But our first hearing is the tick tock sound.  This link also shows how our ears don't actually hear what is being played.  Scroll down to the video Nova: What Is Music? Diana Deutsch.  Towards the end of the video clip you can hear a section of a Tchaikovsky piece in which the first and second violins play different melodies, but we can only hear a violin melody that is not even being played.  

Our skin also misleads us.  We all know about icy-hot spray and cream.  We also can mistake extreme heat and extreme cold.  

What we often are not fooled by is our sense of taste and smell.



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