Sensing the World Assignment: Captain Jack Sparrow


Vision
 Pulses of electromagnetic energy strike the eye which is what we see as visible light. The
light enters the eye through the cornea, which bends the light for focus, before passing
through the pupil, the adjustable black hole in the center of the eye, which is surrounded
by the iris, a ring of muscle tissue that forms the colored part of the eye and controls the
size of the pupil opening (dilation or constriction). The lens, the transparent structure
behind the pupil, focuses the light rays of the image on the retina, the light sensitive inner
surface of the eye, through a process called accommodation where the lens changes its
shape to focus near or far objects on the retina.
 On the retina are receptor cells called rods and cones. The cones are responsible for
detecting color and details while functioning in daylight or well lit areas. The rods are
responsible for working when the cones can’t. They are responsible for peripheral and
night vision by detecting black, white, and gray. The rods and cones convert the light
energy to neural signals that activate bipolar cells that in turn activate ganglion cells. The
axons of these cells converge to form the optic nerve.
 The neural impulses travel through the optic nerve to the thalamus where it is then routed
to the visual cortex in the occipital lobe. In the visual cortex, feature detectors respond to
specific features of the received image and passes them to other cortical areas for
processing like for perceiving faces or a familiar place.
 Captain Jack Sparrow relies on his sight for recognizing other ships at sea. He must know
the difference between an ally like his crew on the Black Pearl or a threat like the Flying
Dutchman. In the first movie, he is able to visually process the Elizabeth Swann’s necklace
as the last piece of Aztec gold, a crucial part of the curse that plagues the pirates.

 The ear detects changes in air pressure known as sound waves, the bands of
compressed or expanded air. Starting with the outer ear, sound waves are channeled
through the auditory canal to the ear drum, a tight membrane that vibrates with the
sound waves. After the eardrum, the middle ear concentrates the vibrations from the
eardrum on the cochlea's oval window using the following three bones: the hammer,
anvil, and stirrup. These little bones acts as a piston by passing down the vibrations
to each other until it causes the cochlea’s membrane, the oval window, to vibrate.
This causes the fluid inside to shake which in turn causes the basilar membrane, also
in the cochlea, to ripple. This causes hair cell movement on its surface to bend
which triggers neural impulses in the nerve cells that converge to form the auditory
nerve. These messages are routed from the thalamus to the auditory cortex of the
brain.
 In the auditory cortex, the brain determines the pitch of sound based on the
frequency of pulses traveling to the brain or by where on the basilar membrane a
sound wave stimulated. The frequency of the waves is deciphered by the brain and
helps us to hear high pitched sounds. Sounds in the middle range are heard by both
these theories.
 Captain Jack is known for his cunning rather than his brawn. He is very sly and
relies on his sense of hearing to eavesdrop on other pirates’ conversations. This is
how he finds his information.
Hearing


Touch
 The sense of touch is actually the combination of pressure, warmth, cold, and pain
nerves that determines what we sense when we touch something. The only
identifiable receptors are for pressure. All other sensations are variations of the
main four. For example, stimulation of cold and warm spots produce the sensation
of hot.
 Kinesthesis is the system for sensing the position and movement of individual body
parts through important sensors in the joints, tendons, bones, ears, and skin.
Vestibular sense is the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of
balance. Our body gets its sense of equilibrium from the semicircular canals in the
inner ear and the vestibular sacs that connect the canals with the cochlea. Both of
these contain fluid that moves with our head. It stimulates receptors that send
messages to the cerebellum to tell us our body position and give us a sense of
balance.
 For touch and kinesthesis, sensory neurons send messages up the spinal cord to the
brain for processing in the sensory cortex in front of the parietal lobe. Our
perception of touch can rely heavily on thresholds. People who were born unable to
to feel pain will not have the same experience with touch as a normal person.
Culture also affects pain. If more people around us express their pain, we tend to
experience more pain, too.
 Captain Jack relies on his vestibular sense to stay balanced on and off land. His
trademark drunken swagger may look strange, but his brain works hard enough
through the rum to keep him on his two feet. Captain Jack uses his kinesthesis
when involved in swordplay, especially in the second movie, where he was in a
sword fight on top of a moving wheel.

 We have 5 different types of receptors for sensations with all other
tastes coming from a combination of these 5. They are sweet, salty, sour,
bitter, and umami (the savory meaty taste). The chemicals in food
stimulate the taste buds when caught in the taste buds’ pores inside the
papillae , little bumps on the tongue. In the taste bud pores, 50-100
receptor cells with very tiny hairs that sense the food molecules.
Through specialized taste nerves these receptors send signals to the
thalamus and then to an area of the temporal lobe close to where smell
is processed. This is why our perception of a food’s taste comes partly
from what it smells like. Most of the time if you don’t like the way
something smells, you probably don’t like the taste of that food.
 Captain Jack loves the taste of rum. Throughout all the movies, this is all
he drinks. Luckily for him, this is a great survival advantage because
drinking water back in his days could have been deadly if contaminated
with bacteria. In the process of making the alcohol, the fermentation
made the rum last longer than fresh water and thereby making it a
much safer drink. He has adapted so much to the taste of rum that he
can immediately spot the difference between rum and other drinks. One
of his common quotes about his drink choice was “Why is the rum
gone?”
Taste


 Molecules of a substance carried in the air activate olfactory
nerves at the top of the nasal cavity. They send signal through
axon fibers to the olfactory bulb that relays these messages to
the temporal lobe and parts of the limbic system. Smell can
evoke emotions and memories because of the closeness of the
parts of the brain that process smell and memory. How we feel
when we smell something is stored for later so that when we
smell the same odor again, our previous experience and
emotions determines how we may like a particular scent
 Captain Jack’s sense of smell is highly adapted to recognize
scents that are important and ignore unimportant scents. For
example, Jack is able to live on a ship with a bunch of sweaty,
smelly men and not throw up everyday at sea. His smell is
acute when it comes to important things like gunpowder and
fire. He is able to immediately smell the smoke while he is
trapped in jail when the town is set to flames in the first
movie. When he smells gunpowder, he prepares himself for
cannons or guns from people who may not be his friends. This
gives him a chance to hide out for a while.
Smell


circumvallate papilla. [Art]. In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/3415/The-taste-buds-of-the-
circumvallate-papillae-are-made-up
Myers, D. (2009) Psychology in Modules, 9th edition. New York, New York: Worth
Publishers.
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communicarion Disorders. (2009,
July). Taste Disorders. Retrieved from
http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/smelltaste/pages/taste.aspx
skin: human skin. [Art]. In Britannica Online for Kids. Retrieved from
http://kids.britannica.com/elementary/art-89672
SparkNotes Editors. (2005). SparkNote on Sensation and Perception. Retrieved
September 27, 2013, from
http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology/psych101/sensation/
tongue: areas of the tongue. [Art]. In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/118973/Taste-buds-on-the-
human-tongue-exhibit-sensitivity-to-specific
Citations

Sensing the World Assignment: Captain Jack Sparrow

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Similar to Sensing the World Assignment: Captain Jack Sparrow (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Sensing the World Assignment: Captain Jack Sparrow