Wouldn’t it be interesting to see reality from a different point of view? Mr. Odell’s AP Psychology class experimented with goggles that do just that. The goggles change the way the wearer sees the world around him.
One of the largest goals of AP Psychology is to gain an understanding of how we humans acquire our view of the world. “Our brains receive sensory stimuli from all of our seven senses, these being: touch, sight, sound, smell, taste, kinesthesis, and vestibular,” said AP Psychology teacher Mr. Odell.
Every micro-second our brain receives little pieces of information. Then, our brain selects, organizes, and interprets those sensations to form our perception of the world around us. Mr. Odell’s class used perceptual goggles to study how we could adapt to our world if reality were slightly off by thirty degrees.
“The purpose of this experiment was to show that our minds adjust to altered perception, “ stated Bob Jones student Kaylie Miller. “The goggles made us see images to the left of where they should be.” As the day continued, Kaylie found that she could adjust to her altered vision.
“The most difficult tasks were walking in the hallways and reading small print,” said Kaylie Miller.
The class went into the courtyard to toss tennis balls to gain insight to this perceptual set. The class hypothesized that a person could get used to the glasses if he or she wore them long enough. Mr. Odell’s class then tested the hypothesis. Several students wore goggles last week for the first two blocks of school without taking them off. “We learned that as time passed, they adapted,” stated Mr. Odell. “Even though the brain was receiving misinformation, it changed and adapted so as to allow normalcy in our perception of the reality we were in.”
When they removed the goggles, the students experienced an after-effect: in everything they did, they erred in the wrong direction. This only lasted a short time, until the students re-adapted to normalcy again.
Our brains are able to adapt to altered perception. That’s pretty cool.
