#embodiedperception

[dualisticunity]

The Secret Language of Symbols: Why Reality Speaks in Images - Dualistic Unity

Why do images carry meaning long before we can articulate what they point to? https://dualisticunity.com/the-secret-language-of-symbols-why-reality-speaks-in-images/

[sallyhammy-blog]

Embodied Perception

Today I don't have too much time but I'll just go over a large body of new work on how our bodily states or activated goals affect the way that we perceive things.  This is research pioneered by Denny Proffitt at the University of Virginia.

 Let's say that you were looking at a hill like this one below.

Then you're asked to estimate the degree that the hill is slanted. Well you might think that this estimation would be relatively accurate, and wouldn't change based on your mental or physical state, but this is not the case.  How slanted you see the hill depends on many different things, like your current emotions.  If you are sad, you will see it as steeper.  If you are carrying a heavy backpack, you will see it as steeper.  

More interesting is how perception varies depending on your goals or as a result of some psychological conflict. Recently Shige Oishi and colleagues showed that  feeling misunderstood by another person leads you to be more sensitive to pain, to estimate hills as more steep, and to estimate distances as farther.  Michael Slepian and colleagues showed that keeping a secret (a heavy burden) leads you to also perceive hills as steeper and distances as farther.