Mysterious Universe has an article on a Japanese study in which a subject was surrounded by six screens and asked to find a target letter displayed together with 35 decoy letters, six on each screen. It was found that the time taken to find the target decreased when the pattern was repeated, even when the subject wasn't explicitly aware of the repetition, and even when the target was initially behind the subject. This is supposed to tell us something about the way the brain produces a 360 degree representation of the environment based on visual information, even though only a small angle is actually visible at any time. (I don't understand this part.)
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/05/mo...behind-us/
The original paper, published last week in Nature Scientific Reports, is here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-25433-5
The MU article presents this as support for Rupert Sheldrake's theories, akin to the sense of being stared at from behind. As the subjects in the Japanese study were able to turn around to look at the screens behind them, I don't see this at all. But if it's going to be presented as a psi effect, I suppose it's worthwhile to be aware of it.
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/05/mo...behind-us/
The original paper, published last week in Nature Scientific Reports, is here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-25433-5
The MU article presents this as support for Rupert Sheldrake's theories, akin to the sense of being stared at from behind. As the subjects in the Japanese study were able to turn around to look at the screens behind them, I don't see this at all. But if it's going to be presented as a psi effect, I suppose it's worthwhile to be aware of it.
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