This is your brain on tools: Off-topic discussion forum: Grassroots Motorsports Magazine

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June 24, 2009 11:08 a.m. friedgreencorrado HalfDork

Experiments show that your brain accepts the tool as part of your body, and changes your spacial map to fit.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8112873.stm

"More telling, however, was an experiment performed with the participants blindfolded after the tool use.

After an experimenter touched the participants' elbow and middle fingertip, they were asked to point using the other hand to those two locations.

After a session of using the tool, the participants indicated locations further apart than before tool use: they seemed to perceive the tool-using arm as longer."

Is this why I always drop the nut after changing from the ratchet to my fingers?
June 24, 2009 12:10 p.m. John Brown MegaDork

friedgreencorrado wrote: Is this why I always drop the nut after changing from the ratchet to my fingers?

No, that's puberty.
June 24, 2009 12:38 p.m. thatsnowinnebago HalfDork

John Brown wrote:

friedgreencorrado wrote: Is this why I always drop the nut after changing from the ratchet to my fingers?

No, that's puberty.

www.instantrimshot.com
June 24, 2009 3:36 p.m. friedgreencorrado HalfDork

thatsnowinnebago wrote:

John Brown wrote:

friedgreencorrado wrote: Is this why I always drop the nut after changing from the ratchet to my fingers?

No, that's puberty.

www.instantrimshot.com

ROFL! He'll be here all week, folks...
June 24, 2009 4:13 p.m. DILYSI Dave UltimaDork

Anyone who has driven a backhoe can attest to this phenomenon.
June 24, 2009 4:15 p.m. RX Reven' Reader

I remember being reprimanded by my flight instructor for holding my head level with the horizon while banking the aircraft…”become part of the aircraft, when it moves, you move”.

One of several aviation rhymes that are taught:

I am a pilot – this is my plane – it is my body – I am its brain
June 24, 2009 9:03 p.m. confuZion3 Dork

RX, I like that chant.

You do start to feel the plane become part of you as you progress too. The back of my head would be red at the end of a flight early on. "What's that rudder for?" my instructor used to ask. He could feel the plane crabbing. After a couple of hours, you get the feel for something like that.

This article is fascinating. I have always been interested in how the human brain works (and why it works). I wonder if it is the same between genders? They didn't discuss that. I thought it was going to be a picture of a sharp object embedded in someone's head on an X-Ray.
June 24, 2009 11:41 p.m. Appleseed HalfDork

DILYSI Dave wrote:

Anyone who has driven a Bobcat can attest to this phenomenon.

Fixed it.
June 25, 2009 2:24 p.m. friedgreencorrado HalfDork

RX Reven' wrote:

I remember being reprimanded by my flight instructor for holding my head level with the horizon while banking the aircraft…”become part of the aircraft, when it moves, you move”.

One of several aviation rhymes that are taught:

I am a pilot – this is my plane – it is my body – I am its brain

I like that. My instructor at my first SCCA Drivers' School used to tell me you wanted to wear a race car, not ride in it. To "..make it an extention of yourself..".