TickleMe4Ever
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Tickling tricks
John Bradshaw, Professor of Psychology at Monash University, suggests there may be ways you can trick your brain into responding to self-tickling? Why don’t you try some?
1) The old numb hands trick
Sit on your hands until they are numb and then tickle yourself. Does it work?
2) Build a self-tickling machine
Create a self-tickling machine. It would seem that surprise and delay may be the key to being able to tickle yourself. Can you create a machine or system that would enable you to self-tickle by remote control?
3) The eyes also have it
John Bradshaw also says that the way the cerebellum warns the rest of the brain about tickling yourself can also be identified in other systems of the brain, including the one responsible for eye movement. The phenomenon is called saccadic suppression.
To see it in action try this! Look at yourself in the mirror. Look deeply into one of your eyes and then shift your gaze from one eye to the bridge of your nose, to the other eye and then back again. Can you see your eyes moving? No!
Try it again with a friend standing beside you! Ask them if they can see your eyes move. They should see it easily!
So why can’t you see your eyes move? Well, just before an eye movement the oculomotor system sends a signal to the visual perception centre to cancel out apparent movement. This is so you don’t get a blackout whenever you shift your gaze.
John Bradshaw, Professor of Psychology at Monash University, suggests there may be ways you can trick your brain into responding to self-tickling? Why don’t you try some?
1) The old numb hands trick
Sit on your hands until they are numb and then tickle yourself. Does it work?
2) Build a self-tickling machine
Create a self-tickling machine. It would seem that surprise and delay may be the key to being able to tickle yourself. Can you create a machine or system that would enable you to self-tickle by remote control?
3) The eyes also have it
John Bradshaw also says that the way the cerebellum warns the rest of the brain about tickling yourself can also be identified in other systems of the brain, including the one responsible for eye movement. The phenomenon is called saccadic suppression.
To see it in action try this! Look at yourself in the mirror. Look deeply into one of your eyes and then shift your gaze from one eye to the bridge of your nose, to the other eye and then back again. Can you see your eyes moving? No!
Try it again with a friend standing beside you! Ask them if they can see your eyes move. They should see it easily!
So why can’t you see your eyes move? Well, just before an eye movement the oculomotor system sends a signal to the visual perception centre to cancel out apparent movement. This is so you don’t get a blackout whenever you shift your gaze.
