Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Scans peek at brains of highly sensitive people

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

To be honest, I think of fMRI as modern phrenology, trying as it does to understand cognition by the shape of your blood flow. As one person said once, it's like trying to read data on a hard drive by measuring the temperature of the case. So I am sceptical about the evidence provided here, but the hypothesis is intriguing. It's this: "depth of processing is a cardinal feature of high sensitivity." What can that mean, aside from the hocus pocus of heat signatures? Maybe this: people who experience the world more deeply may be more prone to sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), "a characteristic that can result in a variety of behaviors, from emotional outbursts to withdrawal, overwhelm, and procrastination." We would still need to define 'more deeply' - it could mean anything from vividness of conscious perception to the number of neural layers a perceptual experience stimulates. But you would think that maybe there's some connection, maybe?

Today: 0 Total: 24 [Direct link] [Share]


Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

Copyright 2024
Last Updated: Dec 25, 2024 01:37 a.m.

Canadian Flag Creative Commons License.

Force:yes