How do our brains adapt to control an extra body part?
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Re: How do our brains adapt to control an extra body part?
#2Third thumb? What? You mean second thumb right?
Re: How do our brains adapt to control an extra body part?
#3Third thumb? What? You mean second thumb right?
How many thumbs do you have right now?
Re: How do our brains adapt to control an extra body part?
#4Re: How do our brains adapt to control an extra body part?
#5Re: How do our brains adapt to control an extra body part?
#6[deleted]
Re: How do our brains adapt to control an extra body part?
#7This doesn’t seem like an unusual finding considering how good humans are at tool use in general. Picking up objects and using them as if they were part of our own body is pretty standard for us.
I remember that learning how to drive a car was actually quite difficult, but by now, even rental cars seem like an extension of my body that I can control mostly unconsciously. (Operating vehicles while entirely unconscious: not recommended)
Re: How do our brains adapt to control an extra body part?
#8[deleted]
Re: How do our brains adapt to control an extra body part?
#9There's this thing called the "curb-cut effect," where you make a change in order to accommodate people with a specific disability, and it turns out that the change is way more broadly useful than you anticipated. It's named after the ramps at intersections that were mandated by the ADA for folks in wheelchairs, but they turned out to be really good ideas in general and helped folks with strollers, on bicycles, and more. Similar things happened with closed captioning. Lots of other examples.
I bring it up because I wonder if this isn't the opposite of that. You come up with a technology aimed at healthy people, study how healthy people can adapt to using it, and maybe popularize it one day with healthy people. Because there are so many more people whose digits all work, it's a much broader audience. But once it's productionized and popular, I bet it'd probably do a lot of good for folks who'd need it.