REFLECTIONS

  METHODS OF VISUALIZING AND STIMULATING THE LIVING HUMAN BRAIN INTRODUCTION Remember Paul Broca (1824-1880), Patient Tan, Carl Wernicke (1848-1904), John Harlow (1819-1907), Phineas Gage (1823-1860)??   It was in mid-1800’s when Physician Paul Broca came across a 30-year-old French citizen named Louis Victor Leborgne, a patient who had lost his speech. His speaking ability was restricted to one single word “tan.” However, his other cognitive abilities like understanding instructions and words and intelligence were intact. John Harlow’s rise to fame was his association as a physician with Phineas Gage. Gage who is also recognized as the “man who began neuro science.” Carl Wernicke too had patients with language problems but quite different than the patients of Paul Broca. They had no problem in speaking but the words were disjointed and conveyed no meaning. Also, their understanding of instructions was severely restricted. They were unable to do even minor cognitive ...

  WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW: DUNNING AND KRUGER EFFECT   “The less people know, the more stubbornly they know it”- Osho              About three and a half decades back two young pilots, with limited experience were on takeoff roll at an international airport with the younger of the two (holding D/White) as captain. The Copilot (holding C/White) decided, for inexplicable reasons, to simulate Engine Failure after takeoff (EFATO). Short of unstick he reduced power on one engine and subsequently retracted the undercarriage prematurely causing the aircraft to sink and skid on the runway on its belly. The runway remained shut for a significant time. Why would someone do such a thing?            The copilot’s exposure to such simulations would have been limited to few in training exercises with instructors. He would have handled them well and concluded that the entire...

 This is part of my assignment for the subject "Stress and Health" MA Psychology 2nd Year. The Diathesis-Stress Model of Mental Illness The Diathesis-Stress Model of mental illness is used to explain the pathogenesis of mental illness (cause of mental illness or etiology). It is one of the most widely accepted theories for explaining the origin of mental disorders. It proposes that psychological disorders arise from the interaction between a person’s predispositional vulnerability (diathesis) and environmental stressors. Neither vulnerability nor stress alone is sufficient; rather, it is their combination that triggers illness. The term Diathesis comes from Greek word meaning predisposition or arrangement.   American Psychologist Paul Meehl, in his paper in 1962, applied this model to explain the origins of schizophrenia suggesting that a genetic vulnerability (schizotaxia) combined with stress could lead to the disorder. Since then, it has been applied to other mental di...

    LEFT- RIGHT CONFUSION “Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons (120,000) that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand.”--- Book of Jonah (4:11)                         While carrying out a tight anticlockwise turn in the IL-76 on a small turning pad I opened asymmetric power to assist the turn. After switch off the copilot, fairly junior, asked me the reason for opening the power on inboard engines during the turn. I was surprised as I thought I had opened power on the outer engines. Only a few months later I was doing the same exercise and wanted to open power on one side to aid the turn. When I advanced the throttle, the copilot promptly informed me that I was opening the wrong side power. The incidents exposed me to one more of the many human limitations I was vulnerable to. On 04Feb 2015 Trans As...

  VISION AND AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS   INTRODUCTION   (In the recently released film Drishyam the hero’s family murders a boy inadvertently. To deceive the Police the family plants a visual image in the mind of potential witnesses to show that he and his family were in a different place on the date of the crime. He manages to create this illusion by repeatedly narrating certain incidents which had actually taken place and cleverly juxtaposing them with certain imaginary happenings on falsified dates. The listeners mind is thus tricked into amalgamating both the fact and fiction and made to supply the end product i.e. the family is at a different place on the day of the crime. The witnesses testify for the family without realising that their brains have been tricked into creating a picture which was only partly true. The science of vision supports the possibility of such a deception. The brain subconsciously supplies details based on the experience thus filling in the g...