The Brain

Decided to do more research on the human brain. As this should give me more inspiration and ideas surrounding memories. I should do a spider diagram soon too!

The brain monitors and regulates our body's actions and reactions.

The Brainstem controls our breathing and heart rate.

The Necortex, is the centre of our thinking, learning and memory.

The Cerebellum controls our balance, posture and coordination.

Topographic maps are the adjoining bits of the cortex that correspond to the adjoining parts of the body.

"The brain is incapable of feeling pain".....hence you can not tickle yourself, because your brain knows that it is you!! weird!

Sleep is very important as it is when the brain 'files' away our memories.

During sleep, you are virtually paralyzed as your brain creates a hormone that prevents you from acting out your dreams.

The left and right hemispheres.

Left:

Language.

Processes in a logical, sequential order.

List maker

Right handed

All muscles controlled on right hand side of body

Right:

Visual

Processes intuitively, holistically, randomly

Music

Non-verbal

left handed

All muscles controlled on left hand side of body

This 'test' is meant to determine which side of the brain is stronger/more dominant in you.

However it is only an optical illusion and the brain processes the visual image to make sense of it. Therefore your brain will just assume it is spinning either clockwise or anti-clockwise, this doesn't then necessarily mean that side of your brain is more dominant.

After tutorial

Points and inspiration I got from my tutorial was to watch the film Eternal Sunshine (I did, and slightly regret it, another film that just messed with my head loads...although perhaps this is good for this project!)

Thinking in terms on memory, to look at human hair...as apparently it holds all the toxins (aslong as it hasnt been cut and regrown!). So I guess the hair could be seen as being a memory??

Ice core drills in the Antarctic are similar, they can tell us everything about the environment.

Another idea in terms of memories, is when you have been drinking, you much do you remember and why do we lose our memory when we are drunk? What makes us black out?

In terms of the human testing, I could try and communicate these historic events to a new audience.

The Shock Doctorine

This is a section of the hour long documentary I watched on The Shock Doctorine. This part shows the relevant bit in relation to my EMP, though a lot of the film was not too much to do with my EMP it was incredibly interesting, though insanely confusing at the same time. It left me hating the world and made me realise how much is wrong everywhere you look.

I learnt a lot about the capturing and torturing of civilians that occurred in Chile in the 1970's, something that naively I had never heard about before. And I learnt a fair bit more on the war in Iraq. Basically what I got from the documentary was that most economic problems/wars/ etc that occur in the world have been 'planned' out to shock the public/country. This shock then promotes mass panic and something else...that I didn't seem to understand.

One quote that stuck with me after watching this was "ideas have consequences" (said by Milton Freeman...I think)

Definitely one of THE top programs/films/documentaries I have ever watched.

The Memory Theif

I was informed about this documentary by my housemate who mentioned the Electroshock Therapy that was used on psychiatric patients by the psychiatrist Ewen Cameron.

The youtube video is quite bad quality and it is in 3 parts, but it was definitely worth watching. it left me feeling very strange though. It is pretty horrific that psychiatrists could get away with things like this and it wasn't even that long ago!

If you don't have time to watch all three parts then I will fill you in...

The main parts that I took note on were that of the actual electroshock therapy procedure. Electrodes were put to the head of patients. Cameron thought all this was in the best interest of the patients. But the patients were completely unaware that they were about to have their whole memory wiped from them.

The patients were then given the drug LSD, this part was called depathening- wiping the memory of bad thoughts.

Step 2 was called psychic driving. The patients were put in drug induced comas (using insulin) and tape recorded messages were played over and over to them. This process could take a couple of weeks or a few months.

Cameron believed "memory loss was a small price to pay."

The patients memory was then rebuilt, and being confused and scared it was very frightening for them. They were given a book/diary to read, which was about 'themselves'.

The patients are now left with no memory of their own from before the electroshock therapies they received.

Human Testing

After watching the documentary 'The Brain: a secret history' which involved videos from years ago on the testing of humans. I realised that this subject matter and the idea of ethics involved with such experiments was highly fascinating. The documentary opened my eyes up to the possibilities of my EMP being revolved around the human brain, psychology and the testing on humans.

Hence I will now launch into the disturbing research of human testing between the approximate years of 1900's and 2000.

Probably the most famously renowned human testings were those done in the 1940's during the 2nd WW. These were called the Nazi Human Experiments.

Some examples:

Bone, muscle and nerve transplantation- September 1942 to December 1943.

Ravensbruck Concentration Camp

Benefit for German Armed Forces

Transplantation from one person to another.

Result= agony, mutilation, permanent disability.

Freezing Experiments- 1941, Luftwaffe

Discovering means to prevent and treat hypothermia

To endure a tank of ice water for up to 5 hours.

Now. Our 'contemporary knowledge of hypothermia is based almost exclusively on these Nazi Experiments.'

Other experiments: high altitude, incendiary bomb, poison, sterilization, sea water, sulfonamide, mustard gas, malaria

(information from Wikipedia!)

The Nuremberg Code: "The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential." (1947)

This was a new standard of ethical medical behavior. Though it never made it into German or USA Law.

For more research into Nazi experimenting etc I have been told to watch Schinder's List, 1993. I feel I need to prepare myself for a film like this as it is not a subject matter to be taken lightly. Even when reading the information on wikipedia I began to cry at the thought of it all. Maybe this area is not such a good one for me to be doing for my EMP!!

Model Therapy

This was Albert Bandura's most famous therapy theory.

'If you can get someone with a psychological disorder to observe someone dealing with the same issues in a more productive fashion, the first person (with the disorder) will learn by modeling the second person ( ie the actor).'

Put into practice, someone with a phobia of snakes will watch an actor go into a room and attempt to go hold the snake. They will act scared, shaking etc, but the person with the phobia will see this reaction and then see how they (the actor) deals with the fear and watches as the person holds the snake. In most cases, the phobic person goes through the same routine and completes it.

“One’s environment causes one’s behaviour”

Albert Bandura, another psychiatrist who also believed that behaviour causes environment too.

This concept is called reciprocal determinism.

Bandura carried out experiments called

The Bobo Doll studies in 1961-3. The experiment involved showing children a video of a young woman beating up an inflatable clown doll; shouting aggressive words and hitting it with a hammer. When the children were let into the same room with the same doll in it, they imitated exactly what they had seen. Variations of these tests allowed Bandura to establish the steps involved in the modeling process.

Attention

To learn anything you have to be paying attention. Therefore being sleepy, groggy, drugged, sick or nervous decreases learning. If the model is colourful and dramatic, you will pay attention.

If the model is attractive and seems more like yourself you will pay more attention.

Retention

Must be able to remember. Imagery and language are therefore very important.

Reproduction

You have to translate the images or describitions into behaviour. But you have to have the ability to do this in the first place.

Motivation

You won’t do anything unless you have some reason for you doing it.

Here is the original footage of Bandura's Bobo Doll experiments:

John Watson

Classical conditioning:

“A process of behaviour modification by which a subject comes to respond in a desired manner to a previously neutral stimulus that has been recently presented along with an unconditional stimulus that elicits the desired response.”

‘Classical Conditioning’ - this is the psychological term given to Watsons idea that emotional reactions can be classically conditioned in people. Learning occurs through interactions with the environment. ‘The environment shapes behaviour.’ Watson’s experiments raises huge ethical concerns. They would not be able to be conducted by todays standards.

The Brain:a secret history.

Documentary by Dr Mosley. BBC4

‘Dr Michael Mosley explores the brutal history of experimental psychology.’

The psychiatrist John Watson carried out tests on an 8 month old baby. The experiment is known as the Little Albert Experiment. The tests showed that via use of repeated objects and by being scared by a loud sound, one can learn to fear the object. Hence you can make a person phobic.

Watson also carried out tests on a monkey, to test the love a monkey feels towards its mother. This resulted in finding out that ‘fear tests the bond’ and that we all need close, physical contact.

The Bandura experiment resulted in realising that a child will copy an adult if they are behaving aggressively. This idea of children copying what they see is evident today in TV and video games.