Imagination can change what we hear and see

(A study from Karolinska Research Institute in Sweden shows that our imagination can influence the way we experience the world more than we ever thought. What we think of hearing or seeing 'in the head' can change our real perception.

The study is published in the journal Current Biology, shedding light on a classic question in the field of psychology and neuroscience about how the human brain combines information from other senses. how are each other

'We often think about the things we imagine, and the things we perceive are two separate parts,' said Christopher Berger, a doctoral student at Neuroscience and The main author of this study said. 'However, what this study shows is that our imagination of a sound or an image will change the way we perceive the world around us just as when we actually hear. see that sound or see that picture. In particular, we find that imaginary sounds can change what we see real, and what we imagine seeing can change what we really hear. "

This study consists of a series of experiments that cause hallucinations in which sensory information from a sense changes or distorts the perception of a sense from another senses. The total number of volunteers participating in this study included 96 healthy people.

In the first experiment, the volunteers had to undergo the illusion that the two objects moved to collide rather than passing each other when they imagined a sound at the time the two objects met. In the second experiment, the volunteers' spatial perception of a falsified sound, toward the location where they had imagined seeing the appearance in a moment of a white circle. In the third experiment, the volunteers' perception of what a person was saying was changed, by their imagination of a special sound.

According to scientists, the results of this new study may be very helpful in understanding the mechanisms that make the brain unable to distinguish between thought and reality, which occurs in some disorders. Psychosis like: schizophrenia. A number of other areas can also apply the results of this study as research on machine interfaces - the brain, where a paralyzed person's imagination is used to control virtual and artificial devices. .

'These are the first experiments to explicitly establish that the sensory signals emitted by someone's imagination are powerful enough to change a person's real-world perception of a method. Other comments' , said researcher Henrik Ehrsson, the researcher behind the study.