The Perceptual Adaptation Experiment of George Stratton and Synaesthesia
As the rays coming from the illuminated objects, reach the curved surface of our eye, crossing its pupil and focus on the retina. We all know that there the objects appears upside down and reversed. Namely, up – down, and right – left; now the question arises: Why after things appear in our retina upside down, we see them correctly?. Because our brain is trained to see the things in the way it is constructed!
George Stratton, an American psychologist, conducted the perceptual adaptation experiment: He closed his one eye with a black cloth and adapted to his other eye a lens which had the ability to reverse the images. For days Stratton was seeing all objects around him upside down.
Passing though the days, the brain adapted to these new data, and while through the lens at the beginning he was seeing the objects inverted, after some days he saw them normally as if wearing the lens. After a few days, and after seeing most things normally sets the lens of the eye.
What we would expect all? Since he took off the lens, we would expect him to continue to see things properly.
But this did not happen! Removing the lens, he began to see everything around him upside down. And this went on for many days, until the brain re- adjusted to the new observational data and began to see things normally again. This proves that our eyes do not see exactly what is happening, but what the brain “orders” them to see!
William James (American psychologist, 1842-1910) had noticed that: we see the disk of the sun because the visual rays starting from the sun, reach our eye and end up in the visual center of the brain . For the same reason we hear a thunder storm, because the sound waves pass from the ear and result in our acoustic center of our brain. If for some reason the visual rays come to the hearing centers of the brain and acoustic waves in the optical center respectively, then we will see the thunder and hear the sun! This is precisely the phenomenon we call “synaesthesia.”
The phenomenon of “Synaesthesia” is not merely theoretical and hypothetical. The University of Cambridge, has been experimenting on people involved in such a phenomenon. They have inverted ie the edges in the center of their brain. After these experiments, found people who hear colors, see sounds, and most interestingly, taste sounds! This happens for example when someone speaks and changes the timbre or intensity of his voice. These people see their partner to be surrounded by a colored mist that change color depending on the intensity and the tone of the sound.
This phenomenon however, doesn’t occur permanently in some people. It may created occasionally. We know that people who take LSD – for the duration of the effect of this drug, exhibit such phenomena. So they want to experience dark places with very intense music, because they perceive the intense music as a feast of colors that attracts them and makes them feel that they live in a world outside of reality.
Via Visual meditation