When we are asked to think of a specific taste and smell, like aroma and salty, it’s very easy for us to recall what exactly it is as you are actually smelling or tasting it. Is it indicating a strong association between olfaction and memory? Basically, there are two distinct cognitive-perceptual processes associated with odor…
Category: Uncategorized
Music on the Brain
Whether it is eating a healthier diet or exercising more frequently, we often dwell on ways to improve our physical health and preserve our wellbeing. However, we never tend to think about our brain’s health or the effects of our actions on such a dominant muscle—often overlooking the importance of our mental health. Similar to…
Does a blind person view the world in complete darkness?
It is difficult to imagine how disabled people live without actually losing some body functions. A few years ago, I have seen a movie that left a deep impression on me as a child. The movie was about a blind Chinese national security officer in WW2 who used his talent in monitoring telegraphs to save…
The Subjectivity of Taste
When I was a young child, my mother tried to get me to eat healthy foods. She would try to disguise vegetables as snacks or meat by simply saying they were something that looked similar. Carrots became cheese, broccoli became cauliflower (I used to like cauliflower), and tomatoes became cherries. Somehow, my mother was able…
Yoga: not only an exercise but also a great masterpiece
Yoga is a mind and body practice origins from ancient India with a 5,000-year history. It’s also one of the most ancient eastern strength techniques that combine physical postures, breathing exercises, and spiritual contemplation(meditation). In more recent years, it has become popular as a form of physical exercise and a self-mind exploration as it enhances…
Synesthetes and their Arts
Synesthesia refers to the phenomenon in which stimulation of one sense modality gives rise to a sensation in another sense modality (Harrison and Baron 1994). I know it sounds tedious and confusing. To put this definition into plain and simple terms, a few concrete examples might help. Imagine seeing waved colors when listening to your…
You are “Learning” When Sleeping
Have you ever thought of how wonderful it would be if I can remember the vocabularies or formulas or other textbook materials by eating the paper? I have to admit that I dreamed about this many times when preparing for standardized exams and other test. Apparently, we as humans are not able to convert something…
The Subjectivity of Taste
When reading the Escoffier chapter of Proust Was a Neuroscientist by John Lehrer, something that caught my eye was the experiment on wine tasters run by Frederic Brochet. It was astonishing that established wine tasters were unable to tell the difference between an ordinary wine from the more refined wines. Simply re-labeling cheap wine as…
Caffeine Codependence
As a college student, I am no stranger to late nights, early mornings, seemingly endless work, and not enough time to do it all. What’s the result of this? We prioritize the work over sleep and rely on coffee to get us through the day. I never really understood how caffeine works, I just remember…
Microtones and microtonal music
Microtones are musical notes, or music intervals, smaller than semitones. This means anything from quarter tones and onwards. (microtones, 2017) Music composed of microtones originated from the Sumerians and it is part of middle eastern music. (microtones, 2017) The interesting thing about microtones is that for most people when they hear it, it sounds out…