Secrets Of The Mind Reflection
Kyle Park
09/30/14
AP Psychology
Reflection on Video
The video, “Secrets of the Mind” that I watched was very interesting and it was entertaining. It was intriguing to see people do something impracticable, for example, the blind guy capable of seeing using blind-sight. This made me realize how complex our brains are. As I studied psychology, I found out the brain was very complicated but this video clearly showed that there are some factors about the brain we still don’t know about. “Secrets of the Mind” showed me that the brain is capable of many things we still have no idea about.
In “Secrets of the Mind”, Dr. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran pays visits to his clients and studies them. He inspects his clients and comes up with conclusions from
what he observed. The doctor first visits the person with a phantom limb, and concludes that the unused section of the brain that controls the phantom hand had been taken over. For example, when the man’s face is touched, he feels the action on his hand as well. This is very interesting because it seems impossible to feel something even though it isn’t there.
Another client I found interesting was the man who could tell movements even though he is blind. The man was able to determine and inform us whether the hand on a monitor screen was moving left or right. However, the man was not able to see when it was out of his range of sight. The doctor believes that his parts that make up sight are damaged but not everything. Evidently there are pathways that are connected the visual section of the brain. One of the paths is all about vision, to see the world, and the other is reflexes. The man’s visual path was destroyed, however, his reflex path was not. This explains why the person was able to define whether the hand in the monitor was moving left or right.
To conclude, I would like to state that the video was one of the most interesting things I have seen in a long time. I learned that the brain is very underrated and not fully understood. I also learned that the brain has to adapt to survive, even if it’s a handicap’s brain. The brain now fascinates me and I would like to know a bit more about it.
09/30/14
AP Psychology
Reflection on Video
The video, “Secrets of the Mind” that I watched was very interesting and it was entertaining. It was intriguing to see people do something impracticable, for example, the blind guy capable of seeing using blind-sight. This made me realize how complex our brains are. As I studied psychology, I found out the brain was very complicated but this video clearly showed that there are some factors about the brain we still don’t know about. “Secrets of the Mind” showed me that the brain is capable of many things we still have no idea about.
In “Secrets of the Mind”, Dr. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran pays visits to his clients and studies them. He inspects his clients and comes up with conclusions from
what he observed. The doctor first visits the person with a phantom limb, and concludes that the unused section of the brain that controls the phantom hand had been taken over. For example, when the man’s face is touched, he feels the action on his hand as well. This is very interesting because it seems impossible to feel something even though it isn’t there.
Another client I found interesting was the man who could tell movements even though he is blind. The man was able to determine and inform us whether the hand on a monitor screen was moving left or right. However, the man was not able to see when it was out of his range of sight. The doctor believes that his parts that make up sight are damaged but not everything. Evidently there are pathways that are connected the visual section of the brain. One of the paths is all about vision, to see the world, and the other is reflexes. The man’s visual path was destroyed, however, his reflex path was not. This explains why the person was able to define whether the hand in the monitor was moving left or right.
To conclude, I would like to state that the video was one of the most interesting things I have seen in a long time. I learned that the brain is very underrated and not fully understood. I also learned that the brain has to adapt to survive, even if it’s a handicap’s brain. The brain now fascinates me and I would like to know a bit more about it.