Hack 58. Watch Yourself to Feel More (2)
The third condition is the most interesting and shows exactly how pervasive the effect can be. Subjects were shown their forearm through a magnifying glass (still with darkness at the actual instant of the pinprick). In this condition, their sensitivity was nearly twice as precise as their sensitivity in the dark!
This is astounding for at least two reasons. First, it shows that visual attention can improve our sensitivity in another domain, in this case touch. There is no necessity for touch to interact like this with vision. The senses could be independent until far later in processing. Imagine if the double-click rate setting on your mouse changed depending on what was coming down your Internet connection? You’d think it was pretty odd. But for the brain this kind of interaction makes sense because we control where we look and events often spark input to more than one of our senses at a time.
The second reason this is astounding is because it shows how a piece of technology (the magnifying glass) can be used to adjust our neural processing at a very fundamental level.
Taken from : Mind Hacks
