Worthy research?
Apparently my brain is a bit special. Apparently I display a phenomenon - yes, a phenomenon - known as synaesthesia. It is estimated that 1 in 2000 people are 'synaesthetes' but Catherine says she suspects there are more of us lurking out there.
Catherine is a PHD student and because of my 'special' brain, I'm participating in her neurological study. On Tuesday I filled out a questionnaire, today I played neuro computer games and next week, two Italian chaps will douse my hair in gel, stick probes on my head and measure brain activity for a couple of hours. No comment please.
Taking part in this research study I've been reminded how the range of research subjects out there has always astounded me. I mean, did you know that there is a name for the conditon whereby someone feels they are about to sneeze and so look at a light in order to bring it on? Yip, uh-huh, it's true. But who in the world figured that this behaviour was worthy of a full study and who, pray tell, felt it viable enough to fund and publish it?
I think perhaps I would like to commission a study into the number of research projects currently being carried out across the planet. Yes, all of them. I'll bet there'll be some winners out there. I hope someone's working on a project to explain why gnomes only come in primary colours - what's wrong with pastels - and there had better be one explaining how it is physically possible for women to miss the toilet bowl!
But actually, I've got a better one. I'd like to see research done into the luck of birth. Seriously, more and more I look around me and think: how is it that I had the good fortune to be born into the family, society and culture that I was? Is there a formula that can explain how I, my me-ness rather than my body, came to be placed where it was and not in the guise of a starving Congolese child or an exploited Thai factory worker? Or a chav.
I guess it was my little shopping trip to a slightly ahem, uncouth, area of London today that pompted this thought again. And forgive me a 'Sex in the Cityism' but, "I couldn't help but wonder": where is the line between snobbery and fear? Truly. I like to think of myself as a pretty liberal type - some of my best friends are white middle class heterosexuals* - but walking around certain parts of London, I feel just a little out of my depth and it concerns me that I seem to be able to look at other people with a sense of unexplained prejudice. Or is it unexplained? And is it preudice, pity or merely anthropological curiosty? And if it's wrong does that make me a snob? Perhaps I just don't get the whole sports gear and 'bling' look and because of the circumstances I was born into, seeing teenage mothers - in the first world!!! - provokes a shaking of the head.
Somebody, please get researching. Oh but hang on, I have to sneeze...
*Yes, yes, I know. Bad joke.
Catherine is a PHD student and because of my 'special' brain, I'm participating in her neurological study. On Tuesday I filled out a questionnaire, today I played neuro computer games and next week, two Italian chaps will douse my hair in gel, stick probes on my head and measure brain activity for a couple of hours. No comment please.
Taking part in this research study I've been reminded how the range of research subjects out there has always astounded me. I mean, did you know that there is a name for the conditon whereby someone feels they are about to sneeze and so look at a light in order to bring it on? Yip, uh-huh, it's true. But who in the world figured that this behaviour was worthy of a full study and who, pray tell, felt it viable enough to fund and publish it?
I think perhaps I would like to commission a study into the number of research projects currently being carried out across the planet. Yes, all of them. I'll bet there'll be some winners out there. I hope someone's working on a project to explain why gnomes only come in primary colours - what's wrong with pastels - and there had better be one explaining how it is physically possible for women to miss the toilet bowl!
But actually, I've got a better one. I'd like to see research done into the luck of birth. Seriously, more and more I look around me and think: how is it that I had the good fortune to be born into the family, society and culture that I was? Is there a formula that can explain how I, my me-ness rather than my body, came to be placed where it was and not in the guise of a starving Congolese child or an exploited Thai factory worker? Or a chav.
I guess it was my little shopping trip to a slightly ahem, uncouth, area of London today that pompted this thought again. And forgive me a 'Sex in the Cityism' but, "I couldn't help but wonder": where is the line between snobbery and fear? Truly. I like to think of myself as a pretty liberal type - some of my best friends are white middle class heterosexuals* - but walking around certain parts of London, I feel just a little out of my depth and it concerns me that I seem to be able to look at other people with a sense of unexplained prejudice. Or is it unexplained? And is it preudice, pity or merely anthropological curiosty? And if it's wrong does that make me a snob? Perhaps I just don't get the whole sports gear and 'bling' look and because of the circumstances I was born into, seeing teenage mothers - in the first world!!! - provokes a shaking of the head.
Somebody, please get researching. Oh but hang on, I have to sneeze...
*Yes, yes, I know. Bad joke.
posted by Jen Smit at 10:14 pm
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