April 27th: FINAL BLOG ENTRY Sunday, Apr 27 2008

It took me a while to think of the most fascinating thing I learned in this class this semester because there was usually several things every lecture that were pretty interesting.  One thing that did stick out to me was the importance of touch for infants, which was demonstrated by Harry Harlow’s monkey experiments during the 1970s.  

The fact that human contact can be so important for development that the lack of it can cause irreversible psychological damage is absolutely mind-boggling to me.  We all remember the surrogate mother experiment in which two groups of infant monkeys were given a choice of surrogate mother between a terry cloth mother and a wire mother.  One group was provided food via the terry cloth mother, whereas the other group was provided its food via the wire mother.  In both groups, no matter which mother provided the food, when a frightening stimulus was presented in the cage, the infant monkeys ran to their terry cloth mothers and clung to them for comfort.  This was also the case when the infant monkeys were placed in new environments, and without the comfort of their terry cloth mothers the infant monkeys exhibit fearful behavior by crying, crouching down, or sucking their thumbs.  In a similar study, monkeys reared only with wire mothers were found to have troubles with milk digestion, most likely due to the psychological trauma and stress caused by the lack of touch comfort in their lives. 

As morally-wrong as Harry Harlow’s experiments were, they have been very important for the world of psychology and developmental studies in humans.  Today, so much more is known about the importance of touch in the lives of human infants and hospitals make sure to utilize methods of touch to help the development of premature/underweight babies.  Even more so, most parenting magazines and books now place great emphasis on the countless benefits touch can provide in the lives of infants and children.

Touch is vitally important to the health and well-being of a baby in its first few years.  Many scientists have called touch our first language, in that it is one of the first means with which we are able to communicate with the world and vice-versa.  Touch is the means by which an infant receives comfort and the specific touch between a mother and her child promotes emotional bonding between the two, one that was begun when the baby was as early as 20 weeks old and formed an attachment to a mother’s voice while still within the womb.  Many experiments have proven that babies that are touched more cry less than those who are not touched as much.  Thus, several experts believe that there is no such thing as spoiling infants by carrying them/touching them too much, and that the more contact between an infant and parent, the better for the infant, who will only feel more secure and comfortable, feelings which are very important for ideal development of children.  Recent research suggests that instead of letting infants cry, as many parents do, in order to allow babies to learn traits of independence, parents should instead hold them close as often as possible, and the children will naturally grow up to be more independent and confident.

Even beyond the world of babies, human touch is very important for the well-being of teenagers and adults as well.  Touch is way of emotional and mental healing, in the forms of a hug, kiss, or even a pat on the back.  Touch is the basis in which humans connect with other human beings, beyond simply hearing or seeing.  Even more so, a benign touch stimulus on the skin causes the brain to respond in a series of positive ways under the parasympathetic nervous response system, including lowering blood pressure, increasing digestion, slowing breathing, and generally making us feel more relaxed and at ease.  Many researchers believe that the overall adult human population is touch-deprived, which is why there are so many cases of depression and such a high use of medications such as Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil, when all we really need is LOVE (as in hugs, kisses, etc…)

Have you hugged someone today?

Sources: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow 

http://www.baby.com/view.aspx?pid=196&cid=544

http://www.healthline.com/blogs/teen_health/2006/12/importance-of-touch-and-teens.html

 

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April 20th: Some of My Favorite Art Saturday, Apr 19 2008

Gustave Caillebote, Paris Street: A Rainy Day, 1877

I just saw this painting in the Chicago Institute of Art two weeks ago and was really impressed by it.  Now I realize that it’s a perfect example of the types of cues artists can use to give their paintings depth perception.

The first and most obvious cue I see in this picture is relative size, which is the angular size of an object as compared with that of another.  Thus, the same objects in the foreground are painted with larger sizes than those in the background in order to recreate the mechanism of the eye in which distant objects create a smaller image on the retina as compared to objects in close distance.  Relative size seems to be one of the most important of the monocular cues of visual depth perception utilized by painters.  In the painting above, you can see the importance of this cue in creating the perception of the three people walking in the very front of the scene, drawn with a larger size, as compared to the perception of the people in the middle and the people in the far distance, drawn with smaller and smaller sizes.  The perceived normal size of the smaller people in the background despite their actual smaller height is due to the mechanism of size constancy (which works in a process similar to the mechanism of color constancy).

Another important visual cue of depth perception in this painting is linear perspective, in which the parallel lines that recede into the distance appear to get closer together or converge.  This cue is what gives the buildings in the painting above their depth and orientation.  The parallel lines of the different floors of the buildings converge to show the depth of the building as they recede into the distance.

Another really cool cue of depth perception utilized in the painting above is texture gradient, which shows that when surfaces with texture get farther away, their texture gets finer and appears smoother.  This cue is seen in the texture of the cobblestone road, which can be seen in more detail in the foreground of the painting but not in the background.

The use of shadows adds much depth perception to a painting, and this can be seen in the painting above.  The shadows of the men in the middle ground add to their perception in the middle of the portrait as compared to those in the foreground, whose shadows cannot be seen because the fall beyond the front of the portrait, and those in the background, whose shadows are so small they can barely be seen.  This is also the cue that emphasizes the position of the lamp post in the very center of the painting.

 Bruegel, Landscape With The Fall of Icarus, 1558

This painting has always been one of my favorites and seems to be a great example of how depth perception can have a symbolic importance.  In this painting, Bruegel intentionally places an ordinary scene in the foreground of the painting, with the more important scene showing the actual fall of Icarus in the far background, to show how as the famous boy drowned into the sea, life simply moved on without noticing. This painting utilizes many cues of depth perception, and an important one to be mentioned is aerial perceptive, which involves the scattering of natural light from the sky to add depth.  The intense hues of yellow near the background of the painting lessen in intensity as light moves to the foreground of the painting, mimicking the natural travel of light.  The slight blurring and blueing of the background also add to the impression of depth.

It’s funny how I’ve always noticed depth in paintings without really analyzing or thinking about exactly what creates such depth in something that exists on a flat sheet of canvas.  I wonder how much intense thought and planning it takes to create such amazing paintings with such awesome depth…

If you want to learn about more cues of depth perception and see more specific examples of paintings that show these cues visit this cool website.

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April 14th: I am not alone! Sunday, Apr 13 2008

Since we’ve been talking about colors and neurological conditions pertaining to color all week long, I thought this blog might be the appropriate place to talk about this weird problem with color confusion I’ve had for a while now.  I confuse the colors orange and green.

Now let me explain the details of what I mean by confuse.  I am not color blind, because I can see both of the colors (the color on top is ORANGE, and on bottom is GREEN).  But somehow, when it comes to naming the two colors, I get them confused. Of course when I sit here and consciously try to get the names right as I did just now in naming the orange and green colors above, I am usually right.  However, it has happened SO MANY TIMES, that when I am naming one of the two colors without thinking about what I am doing, I will mistakenly call something orange green, and vice-versa.

Let me just explain the public embarrassment my problem has caused me over the past years.  In the sixth grade, I asked the boy behind me if I could “borrow his green highlighter really quick” and he responded with a very confused look, sarcastically saying “you mean, my ORANGE highlighter…hahaa suuuure”.  Ever since then, I promised never to ask for a specifically colored “green” or “orange” highlighter, involving the risk of misnaming the color, but simply just a highlighter.  

I remember one time in high school my sister asked what I was going to wear to an event and I proceeded to describe my orange dress in very specific detail for the next ten minutes.  You can imagine my sister’s confusion when she later saw the pictures for the event and saw that my dress was actually green and not orange.  

There are so many other occasions in which I have subconsciously confused naming the colors orange and green that I began to simply avoid the colors altogether.  I won’t say things like “lets get dressed in green for st.patricks day!” or “ew I don’t like this orange jello” but instead I will simply say “lets get dressed up for st. patricks day!” and “ew I don’t like this jello” just so I don’t risk confusing naming the colors.  Another solution I have come to using is simply taking a really long time to make sure that I match the color of a pumpkin to the name orange, over and over again, before I comment of its color, to make sure I don’t risk the word green slipping out of my mouth.  Yet I cannot help but cringe when I see the colors paired together, and the picture you see above is like a nightmare to my eyes.

I swear I am not making up this up, nor am I exaggerating the extent of this condition.  Do understand that I know my colors, and I can see that a three-leaf clover is green and a “men at work” sign is orange.  Yet somehow, if I don’t take the time to slowly name those colors, I get their names confused.  I don’t know if this is a real neurological condition or just a form of childhood trauma or something else.  BUT with the WOONNDERRRSS of the Internet, I have found that I AM NOT ALONE!

Yes, upon writing this blog, today, I decided to look up orange-green confusion online and see if there was anyone out there who confused NAMING the colors.  To my disbelief, I actually found someone who posted about having this EXACT problem:

04-06-2007, 01:25 AM
Bob_the_mighty Orc in the Playgroung

 Orange/Green confusion

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I thought that I was the person that did this, but tonight I asked my brother if he ever got the colors orange and green mixed up. He immediately said “All the time!” Its not that I’m colorblind, its just that I mix the name of these colors up most of the time. So now, I have to ask, does anybody else mix up the names of these colors and why. Is it some genetic disorder or something?

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Last edited by Bob_the_mighty : 04-09-2007 at 06:21 PM.

View Poll Results: do you confuse the colors orangeand green?
yes		4	3.54%
no		109	96.46%
Voters: 113

 

Now in response to Bob the mighty’s post, people proceeded to mock his condition, comment on how he sounds like he’s color-blind, laugh at the one-sidedness of the poll.  I feel bad for his post (you can read all the comments here), but at least Bob has a family member to comfort him on his condition.  Maybe our orange-green naming confusion is like the rarest types of synesthesia that affect such a small percentage of people, they seems unbelievable or made up, yet must exist due to the same accounts from people affected by the condition who have never met.  So now, I can say is that I am not alone in my own weird condition, and I have a new friend named Bob who feels my pain. 

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April 6th: Babies with glasses Sunday, Apr 6 2008

http://babieswithglasses.org/

I remember a specific incident in the seventh grade when my old drama teacher brought her baby boy to school for the first time.  Baby James was almost a year old, and the as most babies are, the most adorable baby ever.  However, the first thing I noticed about the baby was that he wore eyeglasses, which I thought was really odd at the time because I couldn’t understand why or how a doctor would diagnose an 10 month baby with eye problems when the baby couldn’t even talk.

I now understand the importance of good vision in children for development, not only of the visual system itself, but also of the higher cortical structures involved with vision.  If problems in the visual system aren’t addressed early in childhood, they can lead to more severe damage in the visual system that can much harder to fix later in life.  While looking more into this topic online, doctors emphasized again and again the importance of taking children to an ophthalmologist as well as a pediatrician very early and keeping up with their visual screenings.  Vision problems in children are very often overlooked and can cause children to do poorly in school and even develop other problems such as headaches.  A statistic I found online said that 1 out of 4 children have a visual need!

So back to my topic of Baby James, I was very interested to learn how a doctor might diagnose eye problems in non-verbal children, and I found this AWESOME site that breaks it all down pretty well.  It explains how pediatric ophthalmologists can measure the visual acuity of such children with the use of toys, pictures, or a Teller acuity tester, which “helps us check your child’s eyesight even if your child can’t talk. This test involves using striped cards behind a puppet stage to determine if your child sees finer and finer stripes.”  The most common visual condition diagnosed in children seems to be Strabismus, which is the generic term for any misalignment of the two eyes, including esotropia, exotropia, hypertropia, and hypotropia.  Sometimes these conditions can be treated by eyeglasses, but other times, eye muscle surgery may be necessary to realign the eyes.

Another important condition the website addresses is amblyopia, which is the abnormal development of the area of the brain responsible for vision, resulting in one or both eyes seeing poorly. There are many reasons for amblyopia and the condition affects 2% of the general population, causing more loss of vision in young people than all eye diseases and trauma combined.  The site again emphasizes the importance of early detection and treatment, especially in the case of amblyopia, which it describes very well with the analogy of a camera:

“Amblyopia develops in childhood, when the connections between the eyes and the brain are developing. The brain must learn how to put together information sent from two eyes and make one picture. If the image from one eye is clear and the other blurry, or if the eyes are misaligned and send two different pictures, the brain will ignore the picture sent from one eye. Amblyopia results when the brain consistently ignores the information from the one eye. The appearance of the affected eye may be perfectly normal, yet its vision will be abnormal. Using the analogy of the eye as a camera and the brain as the photo-processing machinery, the problem causing amblyopia is not that the camera (eye) is defective, but that the photo processor (brain) is not properly developing the ‘film’ it receives….It is often necessary to patch the good eye so that the partially sighted eye is used. This is called occlusion therapy or patching therapy. This is an attempt to stimulate that part of the brain that has been suppressed or ‘turned off’ by a blurred image.”

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