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See What I'm Saying: The Extraordinary Powers of Our Five Senses
"Eye-opening…memorable…Rosenblum's enthusiasm is contagious and his prose accessible." ― Kirkus Reviews In this revealing romp through the mysteries of human perception, University of California psychologist Lawrence D. Rosenblum explores the astonishing abilities of the five senses―skills of which most of us are unaware. Drawing on groundbreaking insights into the brain's plasticity and integrative powers, Rosenblum examines how our brains use the subtlest information to perceive the world. A blind person, for example, can "see" through bat-like echolocation, wine connoisseurs can actually taste the vintage of an obscure wine, and pheromones can signal a lover's compatibility. Bringing us into the world of a blind detective, a sound engineer, a former supermodel, and other unforgettable characters, Rosenblum not only illuminates the science behind our sensory abilities but also demonstrates how awareness of these abilities can enhance their power.
368 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
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November 9, 2021An excellent book about the five senses.
July 6, 2015
A fascinating book. In the first line of the final section of the book Rosenblum writes: “In a way, this entire book is a lie.” Including the reference in the subtitle to “the five senses”. The author uses the common labels and divisions — hearing, sight, taste, touch, smell — to organize the book, but in each section he introduces us to research that points to the fact that every individual “sense” is influenced and augmented by input from other perceptual systems. We also learn that we use a huge range of perceptual skills that we aren’t even aware of like (like the ability to echo-locate) to navigate. The “lie” in the book lies in the organizational necessity of falling back on the traditional divisions of perception (and the division of the brain in to discrete perception modules), when in reality all sensing is “multi-sensory”.
March 18, 2014
Perceptual Powers & Auditory Bliss
Recently, I had an exciting sensory experience. I discovered that I was able to hear songs from memory. It does not sound like much but it was exciting for me. I was in an airplane, bored and unable to sleep, and I tried passing time by remembering and silently humming my favorite songs. Due to the presence of strangers, I wasn't audibly making any sound and I concentrated my full attention to my ears while keeping my eyes closed. In a short while the songs I was humming in my brain started gaining audible qualities in my ears. At first it was as if whatever song I was thinking of and internally singing the words to, began to play in my ears but in my own voice without any music. But quite suddenly I began to hear the actual recording of the song, it happened to be an old Bollywood song, in the original voice of Lata Mangeskar accompanied by all the music in my ears. It felt no different than listening to the song from a headphone. I stopped consciously controlling the words of the song but it kept on playing in its own rhythm and its own original version that I am so much familiar with. Once that song was over, I consciously chose another familiar strong and in a few moments without much effort that one also began playing as if from a radio or a headphone. I was able to spend a good hour in the state of auditory bliss hearing songs that I loved and enjoyed.
There was one major, maybe understandable, limitation – I could only hear those songs that I was quite familiar with, that I knew or had known the lyrics to, and that I had listened to in the past repeatedly. New or unfamiliar songs did not bring on the affect. Yet, I was quite astonished to realize that many songs that I hadn't listened to in a number of years, for which I had little conscious memory of lyrics, I got them to play quite nicely. So songs for which I wouldn't know the lyrics, if I consciously tried to sing out loud, I was able hear from unconscious memory.
Reading Lawrence Rosenblum's book on the extraordinary powers of our senses, See What I’m Saying, I immediately thought of that personal experience. The book presents empirical examples and recent research on the extent and quality of human perception and sensory powers. Relating stories of many special people who have been able to use the non-dominant senses to compensate for their loss of their primary senses, Rosenblum presents evidence of our exceptional sensory capabilities and our brains ability to use various senses to help us in our awareness, perception and function.
Stories of blind who have been able to enhance their hearing abilities are numerous. Rosenblum tells a story of a league of blind baseball players who use their sense of hearing to successfully play the sport, which is known for its requirement of immense hand eye coordination; another example include blind toward guides will lead others on mountain biking adventures. Deaf people who are adept in lip-reading; blind people who lead mountain biking tours; animators who use their knowledge of sensory capacity to create believable movies; and many other stories and interviews makes this an enjoyable read. A whole host of experimental and academic research from psychology, physiology, brain imaging sciences and other scientific disciplines complements these real-life examples. What all these empiric examples and experimental research shows is that the capacity of the human brain to use and magnify the ability of our senses is beyond what most of us employ for daily use.
Most of us do not usually think about the vast capacities of our senses. By the time we enter adulthood we know what we know and our routines of how we use our senses have been set. The habits of our sights, smell, touch, hearing and taste make us unaware of the extent of their powers and the limitations that we put in them. One practical lesson that Rosenbaum book is that even though we may be fortunate to have all our senses functioning normally, we could still learn to enhance their use and delight in their capacity and varied uses. For most people who are not deaf, lip-reading may not be a necessary skill. However, if we want to become more attuned to the messages that we receive in daily conversations and if we want to become better listeners it may be helpful that we learn to recognize that conversations are more than mere exchanges of audible notes from one person to another. Rosenblum shows research findings that we listen to more than sounds: we imitate other person’s facial features and expressions to enhance our understanding of their message and rapport with them.
As people who are blessed with good vision and hearing, we may not habitually use our less dominant senses of smell and touch to the levels that could be possible. Rosenblum highlights experiments where people's brains very quickly learn to use tactile and other sensory information to enhance their visual inputs. So if we want to taste food better, we must engage our sense of smell consciously. If we want to enjoy a piece of good music, we need to allow our ears to be totally attuned, maybe by not watching the attendant video or just simply focusing our attention to the ears.
While psychological and academic jargon such as cross sensory plasticity or many such terms are abundant in the book, Rosenblum explains them well and the primary fun is derived by learning about the breath and depth of knowledge that scientists as well as ordinary people have achieves about our own senses. That our sensory capacities are almost in finite should be a solace as well as a challenge for us to engage them more fully. If nothing else this book will show examples, anecdotes, and research to motivate us in making sure that we are using our senses fully and in unity.
Philosophers disagree about the material versus ideatlist basis of reality; that is, the sensory whole of our experience versus the insight gleaned from our deep, innate consciousness. If the totality of our experience is the product entirely of our sensory perception, it behooves us that we expand, enhance, and better understand the nature and quality of our perceptual abilities. Even if we subscribe to the other point of view, that our innate nature and consciousness is the ultimate guide to the true reality, the quality of sensory input would be equally vital to activate the correct insights. Either way we could profitably heed Rosenblum’s insights on the variety, subtlety and the immense power of our senses.
Although I didn't find an example of similar auditory memory that I recently experienced, having read Rosenblum's book I now realize that my sensory memory of hearing songs does not end at the time I stop listening to them. Just like I can visually remember important times in my life or particularly captivating scenes from a movie that I saw long while ago, just like I can remember specific memories of peoples and places from the smell of the typical food, I can consciously use my brain to "play" a song from memory. Only, if I practice this skill continuously.
That is the final, most important, lesson of Rosenblum's book, one that comes up again and again and again: the fundamental importance of practice. How we develop and cultivate our senses depends on how we practice the use of one particular sense or another. Wine tasters, lip-readers, fly-fishers, among many others, learn to use their senses for optimum use by constant practice over many years. I hope to nurture my newly discovered ability to hear songs from memory by practice. Also there are a lot other sensual and perceptual activities, as introduced by Rosenblum, that I would love to practice for my personal and social benefit.
Recently, I had an exciting sensory experience. I discovered that I was able to hear songs from memory. It does not sound like much but it was exciting for me. I was in an airplane, bored and unable to sleep, and I tried passing time by remembering and silently humming my favorite songs. Due to the presence of strangers, I wasn't audibly making any sound and I concentrated my full attention to my ears while keeping my eyes closed. In a short while the songs I was humming in my brain started gaining audible qualities in my ears. At first it was as if whatever song I was thinking of and internally singing the words to, began to play in my ears but in my own voice without any music. But quite suddenly I began to hear the actual recording of the song, it happened to be an old Bollywood song, in the original voice of Lata Mangeskar accompanied by all the music in my ears. It felt no different than listening to the song from a headphone. I stopped consciously controlling the words of the song but it kept on playing in its own rhythm and its own original version that I am so much familiar with. Once that song was over, I consciously chose another familiar strong and in a few moments without much effort that one also began playing as if from a radio or a headphone. I was able to spend a good hour in the state of auditory bliss hearing songs that I loved and enjoyed.
There was one major, maybe understandable, limitation – I could only hear those songs that I was quite familiar with, that I knew or had known the lyrics to, and that I had listened to in the past repeatedly. New or unfamiliar songs did not bring on the affect. Yet, I was quite astonished to realize that many songs that I hadn't listened to in a number of years, for which I had little conscious memory of lyrics, I got them to play quite nicely. So songs for which I wouldn't know the lyrics, if I consciously tried to sing out loud, I was able hear from unconscious memory.
Reading Lawrence Rosenblum's book on the extraordinary powers of our senses, See What I’m Saying, I immediately thought of that personal experience. The book presents empirical examples and recent research on the extent and quality of human perception and sensory powers. Relating stories of many special people who have been able to use the non-dominant senses to compensate for their loss of their primary senses, Rosenblum presents evidence of our exceptional sensory capabilities and our brains ability to use various senses to help us in our awareness, perception and function.
Stories of blind who have been able to enhance their hearing abilities are numerous. Rosenblum tells a story of a league of blind baseball players who use their sense of hearing to successfully play the sport, which is known for its requirement of immense hand eye coordination; another example include blind toward guides will lead others on mountain biking adventures. Deaf people who are adept in lip-reading; blind people who lead mountain biking tours; animators who use their knowledge of sensory capacity to create believable movies; and many other stories and interviews makes this an enjoyable read. A whole host of experimental and academic research from psychology, physiology, brain imaging sciences and other scientific disciplines complements these real-life examples. What all these empiric examples and experimental research shows is that the capacity of the human brain to use and magnify the ability of our senses is beyond what most of us employ for daily use.
Most of us do not usually think about the vast capacities of our senses. By the time we enter adulthood we know what we know and our routines of how we use our senses have been set. The habits of our sights, smell, touch, hearing and taste make us unaware of the extent of their powers and the limitations that we put in them. One practical lesson that Rosenbaum book is that even though we may be fortunate to have all our senses functioning normally, we could still learn to enhance their use and delight in their capacity and varied uses. For most people who are not deaf, lip-reading may not be a necessary skill. However, if we want to become more attuned to the messages that we receive in daily conversations and if we want to become better listeners it may be helpful that we learn to recognize that conversations are more than mere exchanges of audible notes from one person to another. Rosenblum shows research findings that we listen to more than sounds: we imitate other person’s facial features and expressions to enhance our understanding of their message and rapport with them.
As people who are blessed with good vision and hearing, we may not habitually use our less dominant senses of smell and touch to the levels that could be possible. Rosenblum highlights experiments where people's brains very quickly learn to use tactile and other sensory information to enhance their visual inputs. So if we want to taste food better, we must engage our sense of smell consciously. If we want to enjoy a piece of good music, we need to allow our ears to be totally attuned, maybe by not watching the attendant video or just simply focusing our attention to the ears.
While psychological and academic jargon such as cross sensory plasticity or many such terms are abundant in the book, Rosenblum explains them well and the primary fun is derived by learning about the breath and depth of knowledge that scientists as well as ordinary people have achieves about our own senses. That our sensory capacities are almost in finite should be a solace as well as a challenge for us to engage them more fully. If nothing else this book will show examples, anecdotes, and research to motivate us in making sure that we are using our senses fully and in unity.
Philosophers disagree about the material versus ideatlist basis of reality; that is, the sensory whole of our experience versus the insight gleaned from our deep, innate consciousness. If the totality of our experience is the product entirely of our sensory perception, it behooves us that we expand, enhance, and better understand the nature and quality of our perceptual abilities. Even if we subscribe to the other point of view, that our innate nature and consciousness is the ultimate guide to the true reality, the quality of sensory input would be equally vital to activate the correct insights. Either way we could profitably heed Rosenblum’s insights on the variety, subtlety and the immense power of our senses.
Although I didn't find an example of similar auditory memory that I recently experienced, having read Rosenblum's book I now realize that my sensory memory of hearing songs does not end at the time I stop listening to them. Just like I can visually remember important times in my life or particularly captivating scenes from a movie that I saw long while ago, just like I can remember specific memories of peoples and places from the smell of the typical food, I can consciously use my brain to "play" a song from memory. Only, if I practice this skill continuously.
That is the final, most important, lesson of Rosenblum's book, one that comes up again and again and again: the fundamental importance of practice. How we develop and cultivate our senses depends on how we practice the use of one particular sense or another. Wine tasters, lip-readers, fly-fishers, among many others, learn to use their senses for optimum use by constant practice over many years. I hope to nurture my newly discovered ability to hear songs from memory by practice. Also there are a lot other sensual and perceptual activities, as introduced by Rosenblum, that I would love to practice for my personal and social benefit.
July 28, 2023
I read this book for a neuroscience book club I co-run, message me if you want our book report :)
This book aims to bring to conscious level some of the amazing things our sensory systems do at a subconscious level, and also to highlight individuals with sensory superpowers. The author also includes fun experiments the reader can do at home. I enjoyed learning about the limits of human sensory perception, like blind people who have gotten so good at echolocation that they lead mountain biking tours, John Bramblitt's blind puffy-paint paintings (they're seriously good!), and grand master sommeliers.
The author also sets a tone throughout the book that we all have amazing sensory abilities that function at the subconscious level. For example, sound mixers in movies and TV have to go to great lengths to standardize soundscapes across scenes, and also make them coherent with the visual set, otherwise viewers feel that something is quite off and they don't find the media immersive. The section on odor was especially interesting to me because it's perhaps the sense I think about the least. I learned that we are excellent at odor discrimination for odors we can consciously smell. Additionally, exposure to a high concentration of a smell for a few minutes improves the ability of that person to discriminate between other similar smells. Repeated exposure to a complex mixture also improves the ability of that person to decipher the separate components (think of expert coffee and wine tasters). But most of us are pretty poor at explicitly naming smells, this can be improved with practice, or if we’re given choices of labels. In general, I loved the author's focus on practice effects. We all have great sensory skills both conscious and conscious, but one of the most remarkable things about human cognition is our ability to set explicit goals and practice skills.
I would have liked the book more if the author had a more discerning eye for robust and replicable science vs. one-offs. While he does a great job maintaining a smooth narrative flow, he presents pheromone experiments with 6 college students per group with the same narrative weight as a very well replicated finding like priming. Additionally, while I found that I could explore my sensory abilities well with some of his experiments, others completely did not work on me or my partner (e.g. try plugging your nose and taking a bite of an apple and an onion. You won't be able to tell the difference. 100% not true, as you might expect).
Overall, I enjoyed the book, but due to the author's focus on story and not on selecting for replicable science as well as so many of the home experiments not working on me, I was left with quite a bit of skepticism. I love the topic though, and hope more books are written on this topic.
This book aims to bring to conscious level some of the amazing things our sensory systems do at a subconscious level, and also to highlight individuals with sensory superpowers. The author also includes fun experiments the reader can do at home. I enjoyed learning about the limits of human sensory perception, like blind people who have gotten so good at echolocation that they lead mountain biking tours, John Bramblitt's blind puffy-paint paintings (they're seriously good!), and grand master sommeliers.
The author also sets a tone throughout the book that we all have amazing sensory abilities that function at the subconscious level. For example, sound mixers in movies and TV have to go to great lengths to standardize soundscapes across scenes, and also make them coherent with the visual set, otherwise viewers feel that something is quite off and they don't find the media immersive. The section on odor was especially interesting to me because it's perhaps the sense I think about the least. I learned that we are excellent at odor discrimination for odors we can consciously smell. Additionally, exposure to a high concentration of a smell for a few minutes improves the ability of that person to discriminate between other similar smells. Repeated exposure to a complex mixture also improves the ability of that person to decipher the separate components (think of expert coffee and wine tasters). But most of us are pretty poor at explicitly naming smells, this can be improved with practice, or if we’re given choices of labels. In general, I loved the author's focus on practice effects. We all have great sensory skills both conscious and conscious, but one of the most remarkable things about human cognition is our ability to set explicit goals and practice skills.
I would have liked the book more if the author had a more discerning eye for robust and replicable science vs. one-offs. While he does a great job maintaining a smooth narrative flow, he presents pheromone experiments with 6 college students per group with the same narrative weight as a very well replicated finding like priming. Additionally, while I found that I could explore my sensory abilities well with some of his experiments, others completely did not work on me or my partner (e.g. try plugging your nose and taking a bite of an apple and an onion. You won't be able to tell the difference. 100% not true, as you might expect).
Overall, I enjoyed the book, but due to the author's focus on story and not on selecting for replicable science as well as so many of the home experiments not working on me, I was left with quite a bit of skepticism. I love the topic though, and hope more books are written on this topic.
July 15, 2013
By the end of this book, I was absolutely exhausted and overstressed of having to “imagine myself in this experiment” all the time.
Oddly enough, the author’s annoying fixation on this expression is shown in a book that, among other things, talks about the role of mirror neurons in our learning process, social interactions and “overall mimicking activities” when dealing with others. Go figure. Maybe he still needs to devise an fMRI experiment in order to assess how repeating those words in every single page is not only irritating, but also a detractor to the reading experience as a whole.
The book is a collection of interesting and unusual facts about how our five senses perceive and interact with the world, and how all of us have some “hidden super-abilities” that we never thought we had. Everything is accompanied by stories of people who have a distinguished performance on the sense or ability in question, and by experiments which show how everything actually works in the real world (of course you’re always invited to imagine yourself in them).
My main criticism involves the shallow approach on the analysis of the findings (no, it’s not about the author’s redundant writing style). Lawrence Rosemblum is merely worried about reporting the stuff, not explaining it. He simply ignores the fact that the reader might ask along the book WHY such things work as they do. If you happen to have some reading background on evolutionary psychology, you should be able to think of potential reasons to what’s being described in these pages. If you don’t have such background, you run the serious risk of being dissatisfied with the reading by the end of it.
Overall, an average or slightly-below-average book. Given all the great things to be read out there, I wouldn’t put this in your priority list, unless its description really gets you curious. Or better: just read the chapter about echolocation, which is by far the most interesting of all, and then go spend your time with something more amusing.
Oddly enough, the author’s annoying fixation on this expression is shown in a book that, among other things, talks about the role of mirror neurons in our learning process, social interactions and “overall mimicking activities” when dealing with others. Go figure. Maybe he still needs to devise an fMRI experiment in order to assess how repeating those words in every single page is not only irritating, but also a detractor to the reading experience as a whole.
The book is a collection of interesting and unusual facts about how our five senses perceive and interact with the world, and how all of us have some “hidden super-abilities” that we never thought we had. Everything is accompanied by stories of people who have a distinguished performance on the sense or ability in question, and by experiments which show how everything actually works in the real world (of course you’re always invited to imagine yourself in them).
My main criticism involves the shallow approach on the analysis of the findings (no, it’s not about the author’s redundant writing style). Lawrence Rosemblum is merely worried about reporting the stuff, not explaining it. He simply ignores the fact that the reader might ask along the book WHY such things work as they do. If you happen to have some reading background on evolutionary psychology, you should be able to think of potential reasons to what’s being described in these pages. If you don’t have such background, you run the serious risk of being dissatisfied with the reading by the end of it.
Overall, an average or slightly-below-average book. Given all the great things to be read out there, I wouldn’t put this in your priority list, unless its description really gets you curious. Or better: just read the chapter about echolocation, which is by far the most interesting of all, and then go spend your time with something more amusing.
January 4, 2018
I finished reading this book last night via Kindle on my tablet, and I found it to be quite fascinating, and a great read. (Note to my readers: being congenitally anosmiac, I have no sense of smell, and my friends will attest that I seem to be senseless in other ways as well.)
The book begins with chapters on the five senses (hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and seeing); each chapter contains interesting stories, research, and simple experiments one can do to illustrate that we are using, and can use, more of our senses than we normally do. (For example, with practice, one can close one's eyes and learn how to sense that a wall is near, using one's sense of hearing.)
These chapters are followed by a chapter on Multisensory Perception, or how the senses work together, and how people missing one sense seem to have significant improvement in other senses. (Again a personal note: I have never noted that any of my other senses are enhanced due to my inability to smell.) The author also notes how lip-reading is something that everyone does, and that it can enhance the other senses. (One final personal note: I am hopeless at lipreading, and always have been, to the despair of fellow students in classes in school attempting to get the answer to Problem D from me.) The author then discusses Synesthesia, where one sense bleeds over into another sense (the usual example is that letters of the alphabet, or numbers, also have a color component).
I very much enjoyed reading this book (with the personal caveats noted above), and would recommend to anyone in relatively full possession of their senses.
The book begins with chapters on the five senses (hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and seeing); each chapter contains interesting stories, research, and simple experiments one can do to illustrate that we are using, and can use, more of our senses than we normally do. (For example, with practice, one can close one's eyes and learn how to sense that a wall is near, using one's sense of hearing.)
These chapters are followed by a chapter on Multisensory Perception, or how the senses work together, and how people missing one sense seem to have significant improvement in other senses. (Again a personal note: I have never noted that any of my other senses are enhanced due to my inability to smell.) The author also notes how lip-reading is something that everyone does, and that it can enhance the other senses. (One final personal note: I am hopeless at lipreading, and always have been, to the despair of fellow students in classes in school attempting to get the answer to Problem D from me.) The author then discusses Synesthesia, where one sense bleeds over into another sense (the usual example is that letters of the alphabet, or numbers, also have a color component).
I very much enjoyed reading this book (with the personal caveats noted above), and would recommend to anyone in relatively full possession of their senses.
May 5, 2010
Lawrence D. Rosenblum brought up tons of interesting facts on just how intertwined the workings of our five senses are intertwined. Some of them were downright fascinating. But I had a real problem with the writing style. He kept telling his readers what he was going to cover in future chapters and kept reminding us of what he had covered in earlier chapters. This was annoying enough, but what drove me absolutely crazy was the phrase he kept repeating over & over & Over again " Imagine yourself in this experiment" Dude, if you're going to describe your experiments you don't have to keep telling us again & again us to imagine ourselves in them. It's only natural that we would.
June 12, 2015
An insightful book about how the brain works behind the scenes of our senses. I found some parts over-explained and dry in an effort to help the reader imagine an experiment ("you're told that..", "you'd shift..", "you try to.."). It was, however, good advice on how to improve our neuroplasticity or 'brain training' in the long run.
I enjoyed the anecdotes, which gave me a unique perspective on how our body does much more than what we assume it to do.
Overall, the book has renewed my admiration for people with impaired perception, and heightened my appreciation for the senses I've been blessed with.
I enjoyed the anecdotes, which gave me a unique perspective on how our body does much more than what we assume it to do.
Overall, the book has renewed my admiration for people with impaired perception, and heightened my appreciation for the senses I've been blessed with.
Read
May 9, 2013I don't think I am going to finish reading this book. Although the subject matter is interesting, as are some anecdotal examples, the author seems to find himself more amusing than I do. Likely I will pick and choose sections of greater interest.
I'm done with this book; no, I didn't finish reading it, but I'm done.
I'm done with this book; no, I didn't finish reading it, but I'm done.
December 9, 2012
Interesting topic, learned a lot, but the author wasn't as entertaining as he thought he was. Would have been much better 100 pages less, or 100 pages more (with more examples and less personal mind wanderings)
September 3, 2015
This book provides an interesting and entertaining insight into the way we perceive the world around us. Rosenblum's engaging writing style doesn't simply inform the reader but invites them to experiment, explore, and convince themselves that what he is saying holds water.
Read
May 12, 2010I started reading this and didn't find the information to be very new or revolutionary. I skimmed the rest of the book.
February 26, 2016
Lots of fascinating research about how the senses work, especially on the neural level. It started to feel like information overload as it went on, though.
March 4, 2024
Very dense read but I honestly found it pretty interesting and I definitely learned a lot from it!!!
July 7, 2025
⭐️ 3.5!
Fascinating but not scientifically accurate data, lacking proper evidence.
*will review further soon*
Fascinating but not scientifically accurate data, lacking proper evidence.
*will review further soon*
January 20, 2023
This was a fun and fascinating read about how our senses complement one another to form our perceptual experience. I would highly recommend this for anyone interested in the brain and how it works, including teenage readers.
July 14, 2024
a FASCINATING look at how complex our sensory systems are and how they interact with one another in impressive ways. i was gagged!!! shoutout to my amazing biology professor when i was in undergrad that used this book as a reference point in our class (:
March 3, 2018
Fascinating! So much research on the human body's senses and how they work together in response to the environment. Very interesting.
July 24, 2022
Read for my psych class, honesty loved this book it was enjoyable
October 28, 2025
Lots of interesting studies. Rosenblum unfortunately has a tendency to get redundant and, on occasion, contradictory. An interesting read, but definitely more of a skimming book.
November 23, 2010
Amazon Review:
Psychologist and researcher Rosenblum reports on recent advances in perceptual science that provide new insights into how our senses work. To cover the range of our extraordinary perceptual skills, he provides fascinating, concrete examples for each ability. Blind mountain bikers use hearing for guidance, creating clicking sounds with their mouths for navigation via batlike echolocation. “Beep Baseball” for the blind, with its beeping ball and bases, is yet another instance of not only directional skill but also how we “hear” the future with time-to-arrive auditory information. On to smell and the neurological process by which scents shape moods. Commercial applications of almost undetectable “environmental aromas” in casinos have been labeled subliminal manipulations by investigative journalists though aroma experts refute this, saying flowers cannot be accused of manipulation. Blind painters show that painting is more than a visual medium, while our “visual brain” helps us touch. So it goes in this appealing and compelling look at new findings about the powers of our less-conscious brain, the realm of the senses. --Whitney Scott
Psychologist and researcher Rosenblum reports on recent advances in perceptual science that provide new insights into how our senses work. To cover the range of our extraordinary perceptual skills, he provides fascinating, concrete examples for each ability. Blind mountain bikers use hearing for guidance, creating clicking sounds with their mouths for navigation via batlike echolocation. “Beep Baseball” for the blind, with its beeping ball and bases, is yet another instance of not only directional skill but also how we “hear” the future with time-to-arrive auditory information. On to smell and the neurological process by which scents shape moods. Commercial applications of almost undetectable “environmental aromas” in casinos have been labeled subliminal manipulations by investigative journalists though aroma experts refute this, saying flowers cannot be accused of manipulation. Blind painters show that painting is more than a visual medium, while our “visual brain” helps us touch. So it goes in this appealing and compelling look at new findings about the powers of our less-conscious brain, the realm of the senses. --Whitney Scott
May 16, 2011
This book enthralled me in a way that nonfiction rarely does. Anyone interested in the brain and its many methods of perception and cognition will enjoy the accounts of seemingly superhuman feats of the senses. My sole complaint is that I did get quite tired of the phrase "Imagine yourself in this experiment." Point taken, though. See What I'm Saying is a highly recommended read.
November 24, 2010
Humans can use echolocation, just like bats and dolphins do. The first chapter introduces a blind man who leads other blind individuals on mountain biking trips using echolocation. Fascinating.
Read
August 29, 2010p. 39
June 25, 2013
Fantastic book. Worth a read by anyone interested in how your senses work and work together.
December 14, 2010
I have expanded my superpowers by reading this book. I can read lips now! (And so can you.)
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews