Reframing Pain in the Brain

Dr Roger Newport and Oscar Hutton have developed a workshop called ‘Reframing Pain in the Brain’ as part of their research at Loughborough University. This workshop uses body illusions and other exciting demonstrations to help explain a new way of thinking about pain: as a protective perception*. Most of these demonstrations have been designed to be possible at home with common household objects – pencils, mirrors, paper, sunglasses, and a computer mouse, for example. The information below should help you to share the workshop demonstrations with your friends, family, and others you know, either as fun games, or as a way to help them understand, too.

* Perception – awareness of ourselves and the world around us through interpretation of the senses. Senses include sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, body position, balance, and internal signals.

Illusions

• Pulfrich Illusion (swinging ball)
  Our brains do a lot of calculations without us knowing. They use the timing of the light getting to our eyes, along with assumptions about light and sight, to work out where things are. This is really helpful, because it means that we know which things around us are closer than other things.
• Blind Spot Demonstration
  The brain fills things in using the information that it has, and makes best guesses, as you can see here. When the dot is in the blind spot, the brain fills in the space with what looks like blank paper, because that’s what is around it.
• Knobby Ball Illusion
  Our brain is constantly making conclusions about our body to protect us. In this case, the brain concludes that the dents in the finger must actually be on the pencil.
• Anne Boleyn Illusion
  The brain puts information together to come to conclusions about the body. This illusion shows that the brain can easily come to the wrong conclusion about the body.
• Chicken Wire Illusion
  When the brain receives information that it is unclear, it has to work out what is going on. It uses previous experiences, context, and your beliefs to do this.
• Slinky Demonstration
  This demonstration shows how our awareness of something is based on our brain’s interpretation, instead of exactly what is going on in the world.
• Prism goggles
  Without the goggles on, you naturally know quite well how to throw a beanbag and hit a target. However, when you put the prism goggles on, they shift what you can see to one side.