Psychology Experiments

Adaptation is a psychology term for when a person adjusts to his or her surroundings . That is , after awhile of listening to the same sounds (especially white noise , like fans , you don 't hear it anymore . Or after tasting something that 's the same for awhile , it starts to not taste quite as new and different

In these experiments , adaptation occurs . In the first experiment with the sand , I got a piece of very coarse sand , as per the instructions . I rubbed my index finger over the for a few seconds , and then

waited for a minute . Then I rubbed my index finger over the again . The first time , the sand feels quite rough - about a 6 . The second time , though , it feels more like a 4 - not as rough . According to the textbook on adaptation , that means that I was adapting to the texture of the sand , and did not feel it as rough anymore , just as `normal ' If I touched it a third time , possibly it would only feel like a 3 , because I was adjusting even further . It was still strange that my perception could change when I was touching the same piece of sand . It seems like it should feel the same every time I touch it , because the sand is not changing . Reading the textbook about adaptation helped me to understand a little better why it is not the same

I got two glasses down and filled one with fresh water from the tap , and filled the second one with water and about a ? cup of sugar . I stirred the sugar to dissolve it so the whole glass would taste sweet . The first taste of sugar water was incredibly sweet , almost sickeningly so As I swished it in my mouth , it gradually started to taste a little bit less sweet , and my taste buds kind of started to go numb . Then , when I drank the fresh water , it tasted surprisingly sharp and weird . Again , I had experienced adaptation , to think that the taste of the sugar water was normal , and so fresh water was suddenly new and different . I thought before I did this that the fresh water would be a welcome change to get rid of the sickly sweetness of the sugar water , and wouldn 't taste any different than it usually did . However , that wasn 't true . It was really weird to taste the fresh water , because I really had gotten used to the sugar water

In the third experiment , with the water , I got two bowls and filled one with really hot water (almost so hot I couldn 't touch it , but not quite . The second bowl I filled with really cold water . I got a third bowl and filled it with water that was about room temperature , or halfway in-between the other two bowls . I put my left hand into the hot water and my right hand into the cold water , and had...