Why You Always Know Where Your Nose Is

etienne_marais

etienne_marais

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Why You Always Know Where Your Nose Is

A new study sheds light on proprioception, the sense a person uses to understand the position of their body parts.

Here’s a challenge: Close your eyes and then try touching your nose with your finger.

Did you do it? Even without using any of the five famous senses—sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell—you most likely found your nose without any trouble. This ability is known as proprioception, or what the biologist Seung-Hyun Woo at the Scripps Institute describes as “the sense of your body parts’ position.” It’s the reason you can switch from the gas pedal to the brake without looking at your feet, or bring popcorn to your mouth without taking your eyes off the movie screen.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/12/propioception-body-parts-sense-research/420765/
 
Did you do it? Even without using any of the five famous senses—sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell—you most likely found your nose without any trouble. This ability is known as proprioception, or what the biologist Seung-Hyun Woo at the Scripps Institute describes as “the sense of your body parts’ position.” It’s the reason you can switch from the gas pedal to the brake without looking at your feet, or bring popcorn to your mouth without taking your eyes off the movie screen.
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I'm sure there's also some good old familiarity in there too. Like as a kid living in the same house for 15+ years I could pretty much walk around a room and pick up objects with my eyes closed.
 
Found my ear, elbow and knee just fine too..

Proprioception- I wonder how muscle memory ties into that. IE, do some weird movement without prior practise. See how that goes.
 
saor said:
I'm sure there's also some good old familiarity in there too. Like as a kid living in the same house for 15+ years I could pretty much walk around a room and pick up objects with my eyes closed.
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Try doing something weird, sit on a chair, lift your leg outwards slightly and bend to the side to touch your little toe. You'll see you can do it with zero effort even though it's something you might not have done before.
 
Proprioception has been known for decades... why is this article only reporting on this now?
 
Look. Seriously, I need to look at my popcorn. I need to get the right ones. I might have some OCD or something.
 
Why call it anything other than muscle memory?

You know where it is since you have touched it millions of times before in your life.
A young chid will not be able to do it as easy as you do.

They even use the pedals in a vehicle as an example. Aka Muscle memory.
 
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