Searching for a Sixth Sense with Gurindji People

Seminar: Searching for a Sixth Sense with Gurindji People
Speaker: Felicity Meakins, University of Queensland
When: 23 May 2022
Where: Division Seminar Series, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology

Abstract:
Like most First National languages, Gurindji expresses spatial relations according to cardinal directions rather than left/right terms, for example "put the flour north of vegemite" or "there's a fly on your west shoulder". This attention to geocentric cues has cognitive effects that show that Gurindji people have an extraordinary mental map of the world anchored in the trajectory of the sun, but which is constantly in operation regardless of the time of day.

One question is whether this unique attention to geocentric cues is reflected neurologically, ie. whether Gurindji people have a hard-wired magnet0-reception ability. Recent work at Caltech has shown that human neurophysiology contains a geomagnetic sensory system (Wang et al 2019). Small rotations in the magnetic field triggered drops in the brain's EEG alpha-wave power. However, no participants were consciously aware of these magnetic field shifts. All participants tested spoke English, which uses a left/right system, with cardinal terms marginal in everyday speech. On the other hand, the Gurindji spatial orientation ability is so casual and accurate, we propose that they might be consciously aware of the geomagnetic field - a new human 6th sense.

Видео Searching for a Sixth Sense with Gurindji People канала ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language