Wednesday, June 30, 2010

How long does it need for one to recognize a face ?


If I were to flash a picture of a celebrity for 100 milliseconds , can you recognize that face ? Now how about 20 milliseconds ? Well .. it could vary between images - Is that what you think ?

To do :

Okay .. recognition of a face is little complex . Lets get to the micro level - Numbers.
If I were to see the number plate ( a 6 digit alpha-numeric pattern ) of a vehicle for a split second, can I remember that for a while ? ( atleast store it in my short term memory ? )

Implications :
Does this in anyway help decrease the myth of photographic memory ? Oh wait .. Iam talking split second photographic memory . ( If ever that exists ... )

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Effect of time, mood swing and sleeplessness on biological clock

When I started off this experiment on myself, I was almost sure ( from the readings that I had done over the years) that there is a definite effect on our estimation of time based on the temperature of the body. ( I cannot recall the source though ) .

In other words, it meant something like " when you have a fever, your body clock runs faster .. so you think that 50 seconds might be actually 1 minute" or in other words.... time runs slower.

Factor 1 : Time of the day: Now I wanted to estimate this quantitatively, based on different factors . I estimated that probably time runs faster in the mornings ( when you are getting ready for office ) ... and runs little slower when you are bored . ( yeah .. dont we all know it )

Factor 2 : State of mind :
What is our perception of time with respect to our mood swings ?

Methodology
I developed a software ( screenshots attached ) which does the verification of the same .

To do :
Since this, like most of my other experiments , was done solely on myself, I wanted to extend it to the other spectrum of the society.
  • People with blindness.
  • Women in their different phases of ovulation cycles
  • People affected by cerebral Palsy (CP )