“As the prism of our senses, the human brain has ways of refracting sensory input in defiance of reality. […] How the brain processes this faked input and prompts the body to respond is largely a mystery of neuroscience.”

This almost impenetrably verbose description means to say that, the power of expectation is, once again, shown to be underrated.

Assistant professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, J. B. Nitschke, tested 43 undergraduate participants’ fMRI reactions to solutions of quinine, sugar, and plain water when introduction of the stimulus into the mouth was preceded by a visual stimulus (plus, neutral, or negative) that participants used to anticipate the sweetness or bitterness of the solution.

Turns out, if the participants were expecting a non-bitter or less-bitter solution, they would perceive the solution thus, even if it had the same concentration of quinine as before.

See also your four-year-old before a plate of vegetables, your girlfriend in front of a plate of sushi, and a child getting a shot at a doctor’s office.

[1] read more | [2] digg story

“As the prism of our senses, the human brain has ways of refracting sensory input in defiance of reality. […] How the brain processes this faked input and prompts the body to respond is largely a mystery of neuroscience.”

This almost impenetrably verbose description means to say that, the power of expectation is, once again, shown to be underrated.

Assistant professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, J. B. Nitschke, tested 43 undergraduate participants’ fMRI reactions to solutions of quinine, sugar, and plain water when introduction of the stimulus into the mouth was preceded by a visual stimulus (plus, neutral, or negative) that participants used to anticipate the sweetness or bitterness of the solution.

Turns out, if the participants were expecting a non-bitter or less-bitter solution, they would perceive the solution thus, even if it had the same concentration of quinine as before.

See also your four-year-old before a plate of vegetables, your girlfriend in front of a plate of sushi, and a child getting a shot at a doctor’s office.

[3] read more | [4] digg story