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Objectives: To successfully prescribe a homoeopathic remedy, it is important to have not only good knowledge of symptomatology but also an ability to closely differentiate a remedy from others indicated for similar conditions. Despite good knowledge of Materia Medica, its clinical application often fails. Therefore, the best way to understand Materia Medica is to study it in an actual clinical setting. Fright which is an extreme fear excited by sudden danger; something strange, ugly or shocking, is one such emotion that the homoeopathic physician encounters in his practice. Materials and Methods: Five successfully treated cases with prominent shades of fright from the author’s practice were studied to understand the causation, evolution and expressions of fright. The qualified expressions were studied through repertory and their finer shades were studied through Materia Medica to understand the key differential indications of the remedies prescribed. Results: The events or life situations that lead to fright and the patients’ response and its evolution lend a characteristic value to individualisation and prescribing based on differentiating from other remedies. Aconite, Opium, Stramonium and Gelsemium were drugs found in this study. Aconite has sudden and extreme effects of fright or repeated sudden effects leading to febrile expressions. Opium has prolonged effects of fright at the sensorium in the form of insomnia, but lacks the intensity or violence of Aconite. Stramonium has a fear of imminent danger or being attacked. The fears are intense, to the extent of terrors; the patient desires company and clings to persons OR hides and tries to escape from the situation. Gelsemium has fright leading to anticipation as well as fear of falling and/or receiving injury. Conclusion: In this study, plant remedies prescribed in higher potencies and infrequent repetition brought about effective resolution of fright in all five cases. The remedies also mitigated the consequences of fright on the mind and body and improved the overall susceptibility in all cases.

Accounts of the cultural aspects of food consumption have conventionally privileged acts of production and consumption rather than acts of disposal. In the case of eating, attention has been given to ingestion as the moment when cultural values are consumed and expressed, so that choice and taste preferences are presented as part of the act of consuming. As a result, the sensory dimensions of taste are located at the palate: flavor, aroma, texture, appearance, and sound. Yet processes of digestion move foods through and out of the bodies of consumers, thereby producing different sensory responses and cultural interpretations of those sensory responses. This article examines the sensory experiences of digestion through a discussion of how Russian consumers interpret digestive processes as means of engaging in and responding to larger cultural phenomena. Ultimately, by arguing for a politics of the gut, I show how cultural trends are deeply embedded in the most intimate bodily spaces of Russian consumers an...

While attention is widely recognised as central to perception, the term is often used to mean very different things. Prominent theories of attention - notably the premotor theory - relate it to planned or executed eye movements. This contrasts with the notion of attention as a gain control process that weights the information carried by different sensory channels. We draw upon recent advances in theoretical neurobiology to argue for a distinction between attentional gain mechanisms and salience attribution. The former depends upon estimating the precision of sensory data, while the latter is a consequence of the need to actively engage with the sensorium. Having established this distinction, we consider the intimate relationship between attention and salience.

In this paper, I explore the phenomenon of a felt sense of the concrete other. Although the importance of this phenomenon is recognised in the contemporary discussion on intercorporeality, it has not been subjected to systematic phenomenological analysis. I argue that the felt sense of the other is an aspect of intercorporeal body memory in so far as it is a habituation to something like the concrete other’s expressive style. Because it is inherently a sensory phenomenon, I speak of an embodied sensorium of the other. I illustrate the phenomenon through contrasting case-vignettes taken from research in early parental bereavement. Based on this, I identify five modalities that outline the fundamental contours of a sensorium and specify that in their intermodal and synesthetic concretion they account for the felt sense of the other. Finally, I argue that the existential importance of the phenomenon is rooted in the distributed nature of my sense of self and self-familiarity. To illustrate this, I draw parallels between the felt sense of the concrete other and the felt sense of home and suggest that though there are also distinct differences between the two phenomena, they are rooted in the same underlying existential need for feeling-at-home in the world. In this paper, I explore the phenomenon of a felt sense of the concrete other. Although the importance of this phenomenon is recognised in the contemporary discussion on intercorporeality, it has not been subjected to systematic phenomenological analysis. I argue that the felt sense of the other is an aspect of intercorporeal body memory in so far as it is a habituation to something like the concrete other’s expressive style. Because it is inherently a sensory phenomenon, I speak of an embodied sensorium of the other. I illustrate the phenomenon through contrasting case-vignettes taken from research in early parental bereavement. Based on this, I identify five modalities that outline the fundamental contours of a sensorium and specify that in their intermodal and synesthetic concretion they account for the felt sense of the other. Finally, I argue that the existential importance of the phenomenon is rooted in the distributed nature of my sense of self and self-familiarity. To illustrate this, I draw parallels between the felt sense of the concrete other and the felt sense of home and suggest that though there are also distinct differences between the two phenomena, they are rooted in the same underlying existential need for feeling-at-home in the world.

Artists have long been interested in the crossmodal links that exist between colour and scent. While traditionally envisioned as a kind of synaesthesia, contemporary accounts of the connections between this particular pair of senses have typically focused on explanations in terms of involuntarily-induced crossmodal mental imagery and crossmodal correspondences instead. A large body of empirical research now supports the view that the majority of non-synaesthetic individuals do indeed systematically match colours to odours, via semantic (or source-object based) matching, and/or on the basis of emotional-mediation or perceptual similarity. Universal agreement with regard to the best- matching colours for odours is, however, never obtained. What is more, the consensuality of the crossmodal mappings obtained within groups of individuals (and especially across culture, and age) tend to decline when one moves away from semantically- based crossmodal matches. As such, the longstanding aim amongst certain artists to play with the abstract correspondences between scent, colour, and, on occasion, also sound in order to try to deliver universally-meaningful crossmodal correspondences seems unlikely ever to be realized. Nevertheless, that does not mean that scent and colour can’t still be linked in intriguing ways, as illustrated by a number of the exhibits at the 2015 Tate Sensorium multisensory exhibition in London.

If we’re alive, awake and aware, then something is going on in our brain which produces in us the sensation of being present and engaged with the world. Our sensations are usually fairly specific, and seem to bring us information about conditions in our immediate environment or in our bodies. The information they bring us is not couched in any language, but is made known to us directly. Spontaneously and without instruction, an infant or small animal knows that a certain feeling is a pain in its toe, another is a feeling of heat or cold, another is a sensation of the color red in a red object.

This chapter challenges approaches to reading that rely on “scopic dominance” (here referred to as Cyclopean) and suggests that Ulysses, in particular, rewards readers who feel with, through, and about bodies—human and textual. The chapter proposes an approach to reading that produces an affective: one that moves us and that we move, one that we encounter with our living bodies. The sense modalities of sight and touch are used to illustrate Joyce’s broader approach to senses, perception, and epistemological questions more broadly. To read Ulysses “feelingly” is to engage the senses together with the emotions in the act of reading. Such readings cultivate a multi-perspectival proximity to the content, context, and language of the work. Affect theory provides a useful way of reconceiving the reading self: as porous, responsive, and part of an ever-unfolding process of being in relation with the world. This essay stages an encounter between text and reader that is designed to show readers how to feel their way through the text in a way that allows reading to become more reciprocal or mutual. The value of such an approach is that it makes it easier for a reader to be touched, and perhaps altered, in return.

Gilles Deleuze assumes that the source of creativity/the new (as opposed to just the development of what already is implicit in existing things) lies outside conscious thinking. Deleuze argues that film mimics our automatic processing of visual input and therefore is able to intervene in this processing in ways that conscious thought cannot, at the level of the most basic sensory experience. Since computers can and already offer input to multiple senses, can they do similar work? The authors discuss Deleuze's approach to finding the difference between development and creativity via the analysis of film technology and ask whether anyone is using computers the way Deleuze conceives of those film-makers who are philosophic using film? The focus of this article is on creativity in the domain of art making.

In food science and technology, understanding off-flavors has a significance with both technical and commercial implications. In the food industry in the United States, it is a widely held truism t...

Organisms are adapted to each other and the environment because there is an inbuilt striving toward security, stability, and equilibrium. A General Theory of Behavior connects imagery, affect, and action with the central executive system we call consciousness, a direct emergent property of cerebral activity. The General Theory is founded on the assumption that the primary motivation of all of consciousness and intentional behavior is psychological homeostasis. Psychological homeostasis is as important to the organization of mind and behavior as physiological homeostasis is to the organization of bodily systems. Consciousness processes quasi-perceptual images independently of the input to the retina and sensorium. Consciousness is the “I am„ control center for integration and regulation of (my) thoughts, (my) feelings, and (my) actions with (my) conscious mental imagery as foundation stones. The fundamental, universal conscious desire for psychological homeostasis benefits from the degree of vividness of inner imagery. Imagery vividness, a combination of clarity and liveliness, is beneficial to imagining, remembering, thinking, predicting, planning, and acting. Assessment of vividness using introspective report is validated by objective means such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A significant body of work shows that vividness of visual imagery is determined by the similarity of neural responses in imagery to those occurring in perception of actual objects and performance of activities. I am conscious; therefore, I am.

This work frames larp as a multimodal medium: based on live-action role-playing but also open for inclusions of other media and technologies. It is approached as a narrative medium, used for performative and participatory cocreation of dynamic storyworlds. The emergent story is experienced by the full sensorium of the players’ bodies and simultaneously uses the bodies as a medium of representation. Players combine the roles of authors, actors, characters, and audience. In its prototypical model, larp strives for a high degree of perceptual unity between player and character and prefers iconic representation via live action and live acting, with lesser importance of indexical and symbolic signification. This study reaches for J.-N. Thon’s (2014, 2016) typology of forms of representation of character’s subjective perception in film, graphic novels, and video games, and applies it to live-action role-playing. The fundamental difference lies in the ‘firstperson audience’ (Sandberg 2004; Stenros & Montola 2010) mode of participation in larp. Unlike the audiovisual media discussed by Thon, in which it is intersubjective perception that comes unmarked, larp by default is experienced from a subjective spatial point of view. The first-person audience mode makes it hardly possible to switch to (quasi-)perceptual overlay, and to ever leave subjective spatial point of view, unless some of the prototypical principles of larp are broken. By contrast, representations of (quasi-)perceptual point of view and of imagined internal worlds are possible, although with some danger of unwanted metaleptic contact with another character’s delusions. For this and other reasons, larp has limitations in the use of simultaneous content markers and representational markers of subjectivity, whereas contextual content markers and all narratorial markers present no difficulty. The paper adds one category to Thon’s framework: symbolic markers, which are based on a pre-established code of arbitrary signs and are used to regulate the active agency or perception of the audience, e.g. a player’s gesture marking off-game status of the character, or movement from the main game area into a metaroom used for role-playing internal worlds. The overall discussion compares medium-specific affordances of live-action role-playing, which are fairly limited in representing subjectivity, to the affordances of larp as a multimodal genre, able to include many other forms of live, recorded and digitally mediated representation.

An inquiry into onto-epistemology, this essay investigates the reciprocal production of aesthesis and empiricism, both the seemingly scientific and the perceptual knowledge that signifies otherwise under conditions of imperial Western humanism. In a reading of Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), I argue that as an enabling condition of imperial Western humanism, the black mater(nal) is foreclosed by the dialectics of hegemonic common sense and that the anxieties stimulated by related signifiers, such as the black(ened) maternal image, voice, and lifeworld, allude to the latent symbolic-material capacities of the black mater(nal), as mater, as matter, to destabilize or even rupture the reigning order of representation that grounds the thought-world relation. In other words, the specter of the black mater(nal)—that is, nonrepresentability—haunts the terms and operations tasked with adjudicating the thought-world correlate or the proper perception of “the world” such as hierarchical distinctions between reality and illusion, Reason and its absence, subject and object, science and fiction, and speculation and realism, which turn on attendant aporias pertaining to immanence and transcendence. Exploring the mind-body-social nexus in Hopkinson’s fiction, I contend that in Brown Girl vertigo is evoked as both a symptom and a metaphor of inhabiting a reality discredited (a blackened reality) that is at once the experience of the carceral and the apprehension of a radically redistributed sensorium. I argue the black mater(nal) holds the potential to transform the terms of reality and feeling, therefore rewriting the conditions of possibility of the empirical.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or drones, are increasingly employed for military purposes. They are extolled for improving operational endurance and targeting precision on the one hand and keeping drone crew from harm on the other. In the midst of such praise, what falls by the wayside is an entangled set of concerns about the ways in which the relationship between the pilots and their operational environment is being reconfigured. This paper traces the various manifestations of this reconfiguration and goes on to situate our being-with drones in a broader set of sociotechnical practices that shape our understanding of visual technologies. Our inquiry is grounded in technical reports of performance, media coverage of accidents, as well as a detailed first-person account of a former drone pilot. Our analysis suggests that being-with drones is disciplining our perception in subtle ways that remain underexplored. We conclude that when it comes to appraising technologies that interface with the human sensorium, functionalist claims of enhancement are inadequate to the task and propose that phenomenology’s commitment to the phenomena themselves can serve as a useful corrective.

The Sensorium is a multimodal neurofeedback environment that reflects a person's physiological state by presenting physiological signals via orchestral sounds from a speaker and multi-coloured lights projected onto a white surface. The software manages acquisition, real-time processing, storage, and sonification of various physiological signals such as the electroencephalogram (EEG) or electrocardiogram (ECG). Each of the 36 participants completed 6 interventional conditions consisting of three different Sensorium-phases with EEG and ECG feedback, a mindfulness meditation, a guided body scan exercise, and a Pseudo-Sensorium using pre-recorded data that did not reflect the subject's own physiology. During all phases EEG, ECG, skin conductance, and respiration were recorded. A feedback questionnaire assessed the participants' subjective reports of changes in well-being, perception, and life-spirit. The results indicate that the Sensorium sessions were not statistically inferior compared to their corresponding active control conditions with respect to improvements in subjective reports concerning well-being and perception. Additionally, the Sensorium was rated as being a more extraordinary experience, as compared to meditation. During the Sensorium conditions the EEG showed lower levels of theta2 (7-8.5 Hz), alpha (9-12 Hz) and beta (12.5-25 Hz) activity. Since participants reported benefit from the Sensorium experience regardless of any prior experience with meditation, we propose this novel method of meditative and extraordinary self-experience to be utilized as a modern alternative to more traditional forms of meditation.

In the foregoing part I presented Newton’s texts as they relate to the human, as well as the divine sensorium. The purpose of this and the next section is to discover what can be learned from those about the human sensorium. Although this usage of the term ‘sensorium’ is found most frequently in the texts concerning the visual sensory system, yet I shall begin with Text III, in which there is no mention of a human sensorium. Nevertheless, an analysis of that text, as well as evidence and inferences drawn from it, will help to identify problems that require solution during the course of this inquiry.

This essay reflects on the last 100 years of sensation in the journal to figure out where and when scholars in the field have concerned themselves with sensuous activity, how that activity is seen to interact with language, knowledge, and speech. The past can serve to some extent as a “rough guide,” showing gaps and leaps as well as modeling specific approaches.

In this article, we draw on findings from an empirical project involving talking to Australian women about their sensory and sensemaking engagements with digital health technologies. Adopting a new...

Thus far I have focused on the human sensorium by attempting to discover in the first two parts what can be learned about it from Newton’s texts and, then in the third part, from the wider context there treated. Recall that at the end of Part II, four questions were posed that could not be answered from Newton’s texts; and although the wider context provided insight into how these questions might be answered, it seems that none of the four questions can be answered with absolute certainty. Nevertheless, if we are to understand Newton’s complete sensorium concept, answers are required for reasons that will become clear in the next section. Accordingly, before addressing the problem of the divine sensorium, each question will be considered here and a plausible and, insofar as possible, an evidence-based answer will be provided. But in attempting to provide such plausible answers, I will adopt a slightly different order from that in which the four questions were first posed.

By contrast to the competitive and participatory models of sport, the immersive model (Heywood 2006, 2008) shows greater potentiality as a healthful practice more distant from transcendent, technocratic aspects of other models, instead accepting the body's immanence as part of evolutionary history and the natural world. Because of the largely unconscious, evolutionarily based responses to one's environment, the environment in which a sporting activity takes place has a tangible impact on performance. As our most evolutionarily recent sense system, visuality is linked to the Social Engagement System (Porges 2011). The mediated experience of sport through visual culture might catalyse the Social Engagement System and the perception that the sporting activity is communal and welcoming. Particularly the subculture surrounding the sport of CrossFit, which spread almost entirely through website presence and the posting of videos of workouts on the mainsite, might be said to exemplify how growth in new sports is augmented by visuality and the formation of virtual communities that then become embodied.

Martha Knox was a 33-year-old woman of Anglo-Australian heritage. Her obstetrician referred Mrs Knox to the psychologist for "anxiety related issues". The referral letter stated that Mrs Knox had been undergoing In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) for the past two years and in this time she received five embryo transfers without success. Martha's sensorium was clear and her memory and cognition were in-tact. After hearing the benefits of psychotherapy she displayed good insight and judgement. Overall her mental state improved throughout the course of therapy. Given all of the information presented, it was likely that Martha presented with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) according to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Given the identified problems with anxiety, Martha will most likely benefit from continued therapy with a specific focus on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT).

Nowadays, cognitive computing systems and embodied cognition associated with the availability of low cost sensors and their integration into common consumer products constitutes an opportunity to redefine the live of individuals in new ways, both in the depth and the richness of detail. The resulting flood of data will require the development of techniques of analysis and visualization at the same time as it opens new opportunities to improve the lives of individuals. In this work, we make demonstrable progress on both of these objectives, by developing cognitive computing related to ethnographic methodologies and strategies for practices with the objective of promoting health and wellbeing. We introduce an affective cane prototype, which has been designed to enable the active participation of people with disability or reduced mobility supporting their autonomy, independence, improved quality of life, and social integration.

Since the inception of online video-sharing platforms in the mid-2000s, dance has held a vibrant presence in cyberspace. This chapter investigates how the pedagogy of sharing and learning dances through the Internet affects the embodiment and racial performance of whiteness and blackness. The author argues that the “splayed-out sensorium” of digital enmeshment extends the reach of white bodies. It enables them to more easily overcome the dissonance of “feeling white” which can occur when learning dances that signify blackness. Simultaneously, Internet circulation can augment dance’s ability to form black collectivity and provide a platform for commentary to disrupt the reach of white bodies and the power of the white gaze.

This chapter suggests that what is needed in current understandings of literacy practices is systematic attention to the role of the full sensorium evoked in the process of meaning making. Of particular interest is the hitherto neglected realm of the nonvisual senses and their role in children's literacy learning. The chapter demonstrates how the sensorial engagement of the body is intertwined in meaning making with different material presentations of digital and print copies of a picture book and in handwriting and process drama lessons. The e-book version of the Heart and the Bottle and process drama activities that draw on Beware of the Bears invite the reader to participate with the body in sense-making through haptic affordances that open up a rich set of possibilities for vicarious sensory engagement with the feelings and perspectives of the characters.

Purpose To evaluate EEG predictors of outcome in patients with altered sensorium suspected to have seizure and to assess whether short term EEG is as effective as long term continuous EEG (cEEG) in predicting the outcome of patients with altered sensorium due to neurological causes. Methods We identified 99 consecutive critically ill patients with altered sensorium in whom nonconvulsive seizures were suspected. They underwent cEEG. Functional outcome was assessed with the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) at 4 weeks, discharge or death. We compared efficacy of short term EEG and long term continuous EEG in recording the abnormal patterns on EEG. Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify EEG findings associated with poor outcome, defined as mRS 4–6 (dead or moderately to severely disabled). Results Poor outcome was associated with nonconvulsive seizures (NCS), nonconvulsive status epilepticus (NCSE), periodic lateralized epileptiform discharges (PLEDS), PLEDS plus, generalized periodic epileptiform discharges (GPEDS) and abnormal EEG background. Short term EEG can detect seizure activity and other electrographic markers of poor outcome but the values are statistically insignificant. Conclusion cEEG monitoring provides independent prognostic information in patients with altered sensorium and suspected seizures. Unfavorable findings include nonconvulsive seizures, periodic epileptiform discharges and abnormal background. Short term EEG is ineffective in detecting seizures on EEG in patients with altered sensorium and should not be used as substitute for Long term EEG

How much about our interactions with--and experience of--our world can be deduced from basic principles? This paper reviews recent attempts to understand the self-organised behaviour of embodied agents, like ourselves, as satisfying basic imperatives for sustained exchanges with the environment. In brief, one simple driving force appears to explain many aspects of perception, action and the perception of action. This driving force is the minimisation of surprise or prediction error, which--in the context of perception--corresponds to Bayes-optimal predictive coding (that suppresses exteroceptive prediction errors) and--in the context of action--reduces to classical motor reflexes (that suppress proprioceptive prediction errors). In what follows, we look at some of the phenomena that emerge from this single principle, such as the perceptual encoding of spatial trajectories that can both generate movement (of self) and recognise the movements (of others). These emergent behaviours rest upon prior beliefs about itinerant (wandering) states of the world--but where do these beliefs come from? In this paper, we focus on the nature of prior beliefs and how they underwrite the active sampling of a spatially extended sensorium. Put simply, to avoid surprising states of the world, it is necessary to minimise uncertainty about those states. When this minimisation is implemented via prior beliefs--about how we sample the world--the resulting behaviour is remarkably reminiscent of searches seen in foraging or visual searches with saccadic eye movements.

It remains uncertain whether particular ictal manifestations of psychogenic nonepileptic events (PNEE) can reflect distinctive psychological processes or prognostic outcomes. We hypothesize that the integrity of ictal sensorium may affect the clinical outcome of PNEE following disclosure of diagnosis. We prospectively studied 47 veterans who were diagnosed with video–EEG-confirmed PNEE, presented with the diagnosis utilizing a standardized communication strategy, and followed for their clinical progress. When compared to patients with intact ictal sensorium, significantly smaller proportion of patients with impaired ictal sensorium endorsed improvement of either PNEE frequency or intensity across both the initial 1- to 3-month (p = 0.005) and ensuing 6- to 9-month (p = 0.01) follow-ups. However, improvement among patients with impaired ictal sensorium was more significantly associated with their level of understanding for the PNEE diagnosis across both the initial (rho = 0.41, p = 0.017) and ensuing (rho = 0.43, p = 0.015) follow-ups. Our study presents preliminary evidence underscoring the potential clinical significance of ictal sensorial integrity when evaluating patients with PNEE.

Introduction: The anatomic seat of the human soul has been a controversial matter of discussion in the philosophical, theological and scientific fields throughout history. One of the more known hypotheses on this subject was proposed by Descartes, for whom the soul would host in the pineal gland, a brain body with a special location that would adequately address the functionalism of the human body. Development: In this work, we discuss the historical influences which made possible the Cartesian model of the relationship between spirit (res cogitans) and body-machine (res extensa) and the technical bases of his dualism doctrine. In philosophical terms, Descartes supported Augustine approaches and in physiological and anatomical terms adopted some theories of the classical Antiquity, essentially the proposals of Alexandrian pneumatic school (Herophilos, Erasistratus) in relation to the animal spirits. Descartes might also have known the hypotheses of some contemporary anatomists (Diemerbroeck) which established the location of sensorium commune in the pineal gland. Conclusions: Although Cartesian theories had strong criticism even in his time, some aspects of these postulates remained up to mid 19th century. Resumen: Introducción: La ubicación anatómica del alma humana ha constituido un controvertido motivo de discusión en los ámbitos filosófico, teológico y científico a lo largo de la historia. Una de las hipótesis más conocidas sobre este tema fue propuesta por Descartes, para quien el alma se alojaría en la glándula pineal, órgano cerebral cuya especial localización le permitiría dirigir adecuadamente el funcionamiento del cuerpo humano. Desarrollo: En el presente trabajo, analizaremos las influencias históricas que posibilitaron el modelo cartesiano de relación entre el pensamiento (res cogitans) y la extensión (cuerpo-máquina) y las bases técnicas de su principio de dualismo espíritu-materia. En materia filosófica, Descartes se apoyó en los planteamientos de San Agustín y en materia fisiológica y anatómica adoptó gran parte de las teorías vigentes desde la Antigüedad clásica, fundamentalmente las propuestas de la escuela neumática alejandrina (Herófilo, Erasístrato) en relación con los espíritus animales. Asimismo, también podría conocer las hipótesis de algunos anatomistas coetáneos (Diemerbroeck), que establecían la localización del sensorium commune en la glándula pineal. Conclusiones: Aunque desde el primer momento las teorías de Descartes tuvieron serios detractores, algunos aspectos de éstas perduraron hasta mediados el siglo xix. Keywords: Pineal gland, Soul, Descartes, Dualism, Animal spirits, History of neuroscience, Palabras clave: Glándula pineal, Alma, Descartes, Dualismo, Espíritus animales, Historia de la neurociencia

Noetic insight involves direct access to knowledge beyond that which is available through the five senses or through reason. It typically has to do with sensing the interconnectedness of all things, and is informed by a feeling that one knows but without knowing how. Psychedelic substances constitute one vehicle for the production of noetic experiences. Using a biopsychosocial approach, this article explores the shifting contexts for the enjoyment and analysis of noetic experience in twentieth-century American popular and scientific culture, beginning with the psychedelic revolution and culminating in the “quantum computer” turn of brain (and mind). It emerges that the ‘feeling of knowing’ may be a sensory ability after all, and a key to understanding many other forms of anomalous cognition.

Given that consciousness is an essential ingredient for achieving Singularity, the notion that an Artificial General Intelligence device can exceed the intelligence of a human, namely, the question of whether a computer can achieve consciousness, is explored. Given that consciousness is being aware of one’s perceptions and/or of one’s thoughts, it is claimed that computers cannot experience consciousness. Given that it has no sensorium, it cannot have perceptions. In terms of being aware of its thoughts it is argued that being aware of one’s thoughts is basically listening to one’s own internal speech. A computer has no emotions, and hence, no desire to communicate, and without the ability, and/or desire to communicate, it has no internal voice to listen to and hence cannot be aware of its thoughts. In fact, it has no thoughts, because it has no sense of self and thinking is about preserving one’s self. Emotions have a positive effect on the reasoning powers of humans, and therefore, the computer’s lack of emotions is another reason for why computers could never achieve the level of intelligence that a human can, at least, at the current level of the development of computer technology.

Visual cognition is limited by computational capacity, because the brain can process only a fraction of the visual sensorium in detail, and by the inherent ambiguity of the information entering the visual system. Two mechanisms mitigate these burdens: attention prioritizes stimulus processing on the basis of motivational relevance, and expectations constrain visual interpretation on the basis of prior likelihood. Of the two, attention has been extensively investigated while expectation has been relatively neglected. Here, we review recent work that has begun to delineate a neurobiology of visual expectation, and contrast the findings with those of the attention literature, to explore how these two central influences on visual perception overlap, differ and interact.

As a legacy of Kantian rationalism, smell occupies a minor place in most approaches to the sensorium. Yet nineteenth-century sanitary medicine understood odor to be a diagnostic tool for distinguishing health and disease. For English evangelical sanitarians, the trained nose made it possible to detect the unhealthy and sinful practices of individuals, families, cities and nations. Cultivating the sense of smell entailed the elaboration of a dietetics, at once a manner of feeding, a way of life and grounds for critical judgment. The concept dietetics supplements the use of the habitus in the sensory literature.

Current archaeological concerns with viewing and all things visual are predicated upon a series of assumptions that have so far escaped serious consideration. This state of affairs resulted from the way in which our concerns with mapping and analysing patterns of seeing and looking in the past emerged before any broader critical consideration of the senses per se. To place an interpretative premium upon viewing space is to accept that vision as a perceptual category was meaningful to those under study, and that it, above all else, shaped and structured understanding to the point that it can profitably be represented and analysed in complete isolation from all other sensory stimuli. In this paper we argue that vision should be folded back into the mix of the sensorium and sketch two potential pathways for achieving this.

The mental status exam (MSE) is an evaluation of a person's current mental state. It is an integral part of any mental health assessment, and can incorporate information from clinical interviews, testing, and self-report information. MSEs usually gather information on an individual's appearance, activity level, speech/language, attitude, affect/mood, stream of consciousness, sensorium/cognition, insight, and judgment. Keywords: MSE; mental health; social judgment; clinical interivew; memory; mental health assessment; mood; speech

Isolated sleep paralysis (ISP) is a potentially terrifying sleep disorder that has received relatively little empirical and clinical attention. However, ISP is a fairly common condition that can cause a variety of negative affective states and even clinical impairment. Many different cultures have discussed ISP for at least the past 2000 years, and it possesses cultural importance. After first reviewing the history of ISP, this chapter systematically reviews the diagnosis of ISP, as well as some of its associated features and individual components (e.g., atonia, hallucinations, and a clear sensorium). All three of these components have the potential to create fear and other negative affective states, leading to clinically significant distress and/or impairment. Finally, this chapter considers the limited data on ISP’s associations with positive affect states.

This article argues for the cross-modal nature of intermedial perception particularly as it applies to Fluxus Events. Perception is both cultural and physiological. As such it has the ability to physically and conceptually link human beings to their environments. The admittedly brief survey of Events described here moves 'across the sensory' from sound to text to image, smell and proprioception. As an international phenomenon, Fluxus and its experiential dimension have implications for what Walter Ong calls the global sensorium.

This chapter looks at those dimensions of the human sensorium which lie outside “the five senses,” as they are conventionally understood. It discusses the multiple dimensions of “touch” in the context of contemporary theoretical understandings of the senses as a multiplicity. It opens up the significance of “touch” in psychoanalytic theory, including Didier Anzieu's concept of the “skin-ego,” and explores an understanding of the self as “a complex structure of surfaces.” The chapter examines the ways in which human relations based on touch are played out, or resisted, in works of literature, including writings by Baudelaire, Hugo, and Kafka.

Georg (Jiři) Prochaska (1749–1820) was born in Moravia, now the Czech Republic. Although studying medicine in Vienna, his talent for drawing was observed. Prochaska remained in Vienna as professor of anatomy and ophthalmology. He performed more than 3000 cataract operations. His most important contribution was the development of the concept of reflex action, although he published on the flow of blood, the structure of muscles and nerves, and other topics. He postulated that two types of nerve fibers exist: one to conduct sensory impulses from the body to the central nervous system and the other to conduct reflected impulses to the muscles and effector organs. He distinguished between the sensorium commune, which served to reflect the afferent nervous signals out to the muscles and effectors, and the seats of intellect and will.

Contemporary theatrical performances and courtroom performances are increasingly grappling with the same challenge, namely: how to respond to world loss, the steadily advancing process of dematerialization. A growing number of cultural productions, including law, oscillate between virtual reality effects (the screen-based sensorium of heightened baroque sensation) and bodily presence. We are torn between reflexive meaning construction, on the one hand, and the material recuperation of reference and perception, on the other. In this essay, I ask what lessons multi-media theater may hold for the contemporary performance of law? I conclude that the current neo-baroque condition of world loss, and the familiar baroque strategy of proliferating form to distract us from metaphysical anxiety, poses serious political and legal challenges. Absent an appropriate response, unchecked growth in ongoing processes of de-realization, dis-ownership, and de-responsification may ultimately threaten the continued legitimation of law’s claim to power in the digital age.

Group therapy provides the ideal arena for helping individuals cultivate the observing ego--that part of the sensorium that has the power of witnessing oneself in the world. The essence of our method is to employ the group as a temporary observing ego, out of which members may develop their own observing egos. A five-step process is presented to (1) help the members see how they are affecting others when they do not see this themselves, (2) help the members see how they produce this effect, (3) help the members see the self-injurious nature of their behavior, (4) resolve resistance to seeing any of this, and (5) help the members arrive at new modes of behavior.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to differentiate between a sociology of the body and an embodied sociology, prior to considering what this might mean in methodological terms for those wishing to conduct research into the senses and the sensorium in sport and physical culture. Design/methodology/approach – The approach taken involves reviewing the work of those who have already engaged with the senses in sport and physical culture in order to highlight an important methodological challenge. This revolves around how researchers might seek to gain access to the senses of others and explore the sensorium in action. To illustrate how this challenge can be addressed, a number of studies that have utilised visual technologies in combination with interviews are examined and the potential this approach has in seeking the senses is considered. Findings – The findings confirm the interview as a multi-sensory event and the potential of visual technologies to provide access to the range of senses involved in sport and physical culture activities. Research limitations/implications – The limitations of traditional forms of inquiry and representational genres for both seeking the senses and communicating these to a range of different audiences are highlighted and alternatives are suggested. Originality/value – The chapter's originality lies in its portrayal of unacknowledged potentialities for seeking the senses using standard methodologies, and how these might be developed further, in creative combination with more novel approaches, as part of a future shift towards more sensuous forms of scholarship in sport and physical culture.

There has been a renewed interest in psychology and anthropology in the idea of altered states of consciousness. This paper begins by examining the meaning of this term and the extent to which such experiences are reported globally. The topic of shamanism is then discussed, first with respect to its social functions, and then to what is known about its psychological aspects (which is little). Far more is known about altered states of consciousness (ASCs) as they are expressed in meditation, trance and possession, and channeling, and a number of studies are reviewed, both of individuals and of groups, which illustrate the full extent of ASCs. The following section then goes more deeply into the stimulus situations that are associated with ASCs. This brings the discussion into drugs, attempts at altering the sensorium (music and imagery in particular) and recent technological innovations, peculiar to our time, which deliberately alter our usual state of awareness through feedback principles. In the final section, what is known about the physiology of ASCs is reviewed and also the extent to which these phenomena, including shamanism, are regarded as pathological. As a great number of people across the world utilize the healing aspects of trance, possession and shamanic practices, this aspect is discussed, and lastly the adaptive functions of ASCs are considered, with their context in the history of psychology.

Multiple social science disciplines have converged on the senses in recent years, where formerly the domain of perception was the preserve of psychology. Linguistics, or Language, however, seems to have an ambivalent role in this undertaking. On the one hand, Language with a capital L (language as a general human capacity) is part of the problem. It was the prior focus on language (text) that led to the disregard of the senses. On the other hand, it is language (with a small "l", a particular tongue) that offers key insights into how other peoples onceptualize the senses. In this article, we argue that a systematic cross-cultural approach can reveal fundamental truths about the precise connections between language and the senses. Recurring failures to adequately describe the sensorium across specific languages reveal the intrinsic limits of Language. But the converse does not hold. Failures of expressibility in one language need not hold any implications for the Language faculty per se, and indeed can enlighten us about the possible experiential worlds available to human experience.