Human adults, however, can also make use of feature cues (e.g. color, texture, landmarks) in their surrounding area. But which method do we use more often? Psychologists Kristin R. Ratliff from the University of Chicago and Nora S. Newcombe from Temple University conducted a set of experiments investigating if human adults have a preference for using geometric or feature cues to become reoriented.
The first experiment took place in either a large or small white, rectangular room with a landmark (a big piece of colorful fabric) hanging on one wall. The study volunteers saw the researcher place a set of keys in a box in one of the corners. The volunteers were blindfolded and spun around, to become disoriented. After removing the blindfold, they had to point to the corner where the keys were. After a break, the volunteers were told the experiment would be repeated, although they wouldn't watch the researcher hide the keys. Unbeknownst to them, during the break the researchers moved the landmark to an adjacent wall—this change forced the volunteers to use either geometric cues or feature cues, but not both, to reorient themselves and locate the keys. For the second experiment, the researchers used a similar method, except they switched room sizes (the volunteers moved from a larger room to a smaller room and vice versa) during the break.
The results, reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal that the brain does not have a distinct preference for certain cues during reorientation. In the first experiment, volunteers reoriented themselves by using geometric cues in the smaller room but used feature cues in the larger room. However, the volunteers who went from the larger room to the smaller room in the second experiment also relied on feature cues, searching for the landmark to become reoriented.
During the second experiment, the researchers surmise, the volunteers had a positive experience using feature cues in the large room, so they kept on relying on the landmark in the smaller room to become reoriented. These findings indicate that the brain takes into account a number of factors, including the environment and our past experiences, while determining the best way to reorient us to our surroundings.
Association for Psychological Science
Brain Identity
Suppose we have all been misled by language invented by our predecessors and the simple truth turns out to be that we are not “human beings” or “persons” but rather human brains that are intimately connected to all the organs and other parts of the particular human body in which we reside.
What if the word “person” and the “personal pronouns” we commonly use such as “I”, “me”, “we”, “you”, etc. are only linguistic inventions of human brains that for one reason or another were unable to identify themselves correctly as actually being human brains?
It can be shown that a human brain has the ability to create and use spoken and written language through the use of certain areas of cerebral cortex located usually in its left hemisphere. Strokes or other damage in these areas cause impairment or loss of a human brain’s ability to produce and understand spoken and written language. Precisely which linguistic abilities are impaired or lost in any given instance and to what degree depends upon the exact location and extent of the brain damage.
We know that every human brain and body has been built from a new combination of parental DNA that resulted from the union of a particular egg and a particular sperm which formed a single new cell; and over about a nine month period the information stored in the DNA inside that first new cell allowed it to divide and grow into trillions of new cells of various types, all of which were organized into the complexity of nature that we incorporate into just two words: “newborn baby”.
We also know that having been built by DNA, each brain and body – beginning even during the building process and continuing ever after - has been continually modified by an enormous amount of environmental variables and experience, up to and including the present moment.
Suppose for the sake of argument that I actually am a human brain that is continuous with a spinal cord and connected through nerves to all the organs and other parts of the body in which I reside, with both brain and body being composed of an enormous complexity of atoms and molecules all built from the information stored in my DNA and modified by a huge amount of environmental variables and experience.
Getting used to that kind of an identity for oneself might take some time. But if that is my true identity, does my realization of that fact somehow mean that it is not possible for anything else to exist that is not made of atoms and molecules like I am? Or is it possible that something might exist that may be many orders of magnitude more intelligent and powerful than I am that is not composed of atoms and molecules? Is it possible that something exists that is in some way related to the awesome complexity of nature that is evident in the enormity of the cosmos and can be seen in incredible intricacy of the living world on our planet of which I am a part? Is such an entity something that human brains might choose to call a “Supernatural Power”, or perhaps “God”?
I am thrilled to be able to understand the basics of what I am and how I came into existence. Having such an understanding, however, does not somehow automatically enlighten me as to the nature of everything else that may or may not exist and how it all came about, but it sure makes me wonder.
If I am only linguistically a “human being” or a “person” - a fictional entity invented by my predecessors that does not exist except in language, and that can be theoretically thought of as perhaps “owning” a brain and a body - but in reality I am actually a particular human brain that has been built by my DNA and modified by a ton of experience and that is intimately connected to and living within a particular human body, my body, then the brain inside my head – the brain that thinks precisely what I think, feels exactly what I feel, remembers everything that I remember, knows what I know, and has experienced everything that I have experienced - that brain located behind my forehead and inside my skull cannot be called “my brain”, as if I am somehow a separate entity that “owns” that brain, because that brain is, in fact, “me”.
Do we own our brains?
Rather than thinking that you own your brain, I think it is probably more accurate to say that your brain owns you.
EDIT: This was intended as a reply to Robert's posting (below).
It depends
You can be a your brain, but your aren't always your brain. Mereologically speaking your brain is an organ of the organism that is you. If you start thinking that you are your brain you commit the Mereological Fallacy. google 4it
The brain swap experiment just makes the brain think it is you in another body, but until the mereological link is broken, it is still just one -even if a very important one- of your organs.
Sorry cannot go into any more detail until I publish.
Don't feed your inner Troll.