Can you predict your emotional state when things have not yet happened ?

Here is the postulate - One cannot imagine one's emotional state of an instant which hasn't yet occurred, even if one is well aware of its imminence ( and has prepared himself for the consequences of the outcome )

Here are a couple of examples on different emotional instances which the subject is primed for.

Despair - tell a student that he is to fail in an exam , and tell that you are pretty sure of it. The student prepares for that event ( emotionally ). Even though he might imagine the mental state he might be when the results are out, he would not be able to predict the actual state of mind he might be in when he is encountered with the result .

Anger - Imagine that you are in a freakish road accident involving you and another driver, where you are not hurt. But the chassis of your car is mildly damaged. You can prime yourself of the emotional state you might be , in such a situation. And even though you are well prepared for that event, and you promise yourself that you would not loose your temper in that situation, you cannot but be angry - either at the other person involved in that accident or at the situation or in the worst case - at yourself.

How can I quantitatively measure/prove this hypothesis ?

Hospitals should not show movies on their TV.

When a patient waits for his turn for consultation with the doctors, they usually wait in a room which has a TV which gives live feeds of movies / news / programs that are not screened for their content.

Recently I went to a hospital and was waiting for my turn. I was accompanying someone who had to go through one round of endoscopy ( a relatively painful experience ). The TV was showing something of a emotionally un-savory movie which had the usual dose of violence in it. ( Also death )

My postulation is that these programs ( violent / ones showing negative emotions like pain, loss and grief or visuals involving death/accidents) affect the patients in such a way as to increase their fear of pain of a treatment that is immediately due to them.

Here are a few suggestions :

1) The programs/shows shown on TV should not be live. ( Unless it is sports or music/entertainment channels )

2) For a child-care hospital , they could be cartoons.

Color recognition

Iam color blind .- Hmmm not completely ! .... Well atleast I dont have the sense of color ! ( Wait ... let me not be so harsh on myself ... I dont have the dressnig sense .... hmmm or a little milder would be My sense of fashion is weird .. !
Well maybe its because I cannot recognize different shades of color ? Here is a little experimental thought ....

• You are shown one particular shade of brown .... for maybe 5 seconds .. ( CONTROL sample )
• And then .... you are shown a palette of different shades of brown ( POPULATION sample )..... and asked to choose from it , the shade just saw ....
  
• Can you pick the right shade ?? How much of a deviation would you cause ?

After thought : I found this task difficult with both CONTROL and POPULATION , both shown to the subject ! Now I can imagine how difficult it would be if the control sample is not shown ! Phew !

Future actions :

• Build a small software and test it on different gender and age group .
• Show the gradient ! Ask them to choose from it.
  
• Now lets make the steps a little more difficult ... We donot give it as a gradient .. but a random scatter of shades ! ( whoa ! I know thats difficult )
  

I had this idea with the octaves - ( hmm ... the sounds .... do , re, me ...ring a bell ? ) . More on that later.

How would it be .... to be old ?

Very similar to an old idea that I had ... which I called 'Future on a napkin' ... But this is much personal ! I have started imagining how would it be ... 10 years from now ... and 20 years from now .
Well ...on one hand it is interesting , partly due to the uncertainty of it .. and partly because of the imaginative creativity you are bestowed with.
And on the other ... it disappoints you, because 'your future' is only as good as your imagination ! ( And if you dont have a good one , you dont have a good future ! )

So I kept a blog of the future where I keep entries which are way ahead of the future and ...wait .. when the future is on you, you update the blog with how true your 'prediction' was . Interesting isnt it ?

A sample blog entry looks like this :

Entry for 2027 January 31

My kid will be 10 years old today. Written on 2004 April.

Okay my kid will be older than that. ( Looks like I would be too old to make a kid that late ) Modified on 2005 May 12th

I think I would not get married ! Modified on 2007 October 2nd

I thought this would be a great idea :)
See my related post on future on a napkin.

Additional points :

1) Save each entry as "scheduled posts".
2) Subscribe to the blog that you made so that you get an email reminder when that entry is posted. ( eg : You create a blog entry for 6 months in advance and then when it actually posts on that day , you get a mail of what you thought about that day , 6 months ago ! Whoa ! )

Checking your response time .

Small Decisions.
Thats the word for the day. ( okay .. 2-words) How can you ability to quickly adapt and respond to small decisions affect your life ?

That sounds a little deep. Here is the simpler version ! Very similar to checking your response time on some of those flash games . But this time,


To implement :

• A software that takes in inputs from the user .
• To start with, the screen flashes either of the 4 direction keys in random. ( step 2 )
  
• The user responds by pressing the key displayed on the screen. ( step 3 )
  
• The software calculates the time difference between step 2 and step 3.
  

How much is your life worth now ?

Here is a thought experiment I do to others ! ( Somehow it does not work with oneself ! )

Ask this question to your friend ( mind you ... only close friends ) ...

• Imagine , there's a gun with 100 bullet chambers ( than the usual 6 round one ) .
• And 99 of it is empty.
• 1 chamber has a bullet.
• The chamber is rotated - so you dont know finally if the round is empty or has a bullet (Oh just like the Russian-roulette ! )
• Now ask your friend if he would be willing to keep it on his temple and fire. ( oh just like the russian roulette - but ... you dont play .. just your friend )
• But here is the reward . If he is alive, he will get $1 as reward. Is he willing to do it ?
  
• Not willing ? Okay how about a MILLION dollars ... would he do it ? ( remember .. the chances are 1/100 *only* )
• If he says yes, .. wait ... it means he values his life against risk worthiness somewhere between $1 and $1 MILLION !
  
• Now increase the lower figure and decrease the upper figure .
  
• Keep doing that .. until he / you reach a bracket of figure where you would not be able to make a decision ... maybe something like ... between $16,000 - $75,000 ( Which means ... he would not be willing to do it for $16,000 but definitely for $75,000 ! )
• See if you can come with a fixed figure .

Now do this sometime later in his life ! And see if that has changed !

I realized that this figure depends on many things -
1) The current financial situation he is in.
2) Is he contented with his life . ( higher the dollar figure, the chances are it is a closer indication of whether he is happy or not )
3) Social obligations and responsibilites. ( The $ figure is higher for people with higher social responsibilities )


Modifications
1) You can change the number from 100 to any other that you like