Dermo-optical perception
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Dermo-optical perception (DOP) – also known as dermal vision, dermo-optics, eyeless sight, eyeless vision, skin vision, skin reading, finger vision, paroptic vision, para-optic perception, cutaneous perception, digital sight, and bio-introscopy – is a term that is used in parapsychological literature to denote the alleged capability to perceive colors, differences in brightness, and/or formed images through the skin (without using the eyes, as distinct from
blindsight Blindsight is the ability of people who are cortically blind to respond to visual stimuli that they do not consciously see due to lesions in the primary visual cortex, also known as the striate cortex or Brodmann Area 17. The term was coined by ...
), especially upon touching with the fingertips. Typically, people who claim to have dermo-optical perception claim to be able to see using the skin of their fingers or hands. People who claim to have DOP often demonstrate it by reading while blindfolded. The effect has not been demonstrated scientifically.


History

The first Western scientific reports are from the 17th century. Scattered cases kept being reported over the years, but scientific interest didn't pick up until the 20th century.
ESP ESP most commonly refers to: * Extrasensory perception, a paranormal ability ESP may also refer to: Arts, entertainment Music * ESP Guitars, a manufacturer of electric guitars * E.S. Posthumus, an independent music group formed in 2000, ...
researchers enthusiastically studied DOP, hoping that it was an example of extra-sensory perception, but they could only conclude that some of the results couldn't be explained by cheating. According to
Joe Nickell Joe Nickell (born December 1, 1944) is an American skeptic and investigator of the paranormal. Nickell is senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and writes regularly for their journal, ''Skeptical Inquirer''. He is als ...
, a noted
skeptic Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the pe ...
, many circus entertainers and
magicians Magician or The Magician may refer to: Performers * A practitioner of magic (supernatural) * A practitioner of magic (illusion) * Magician (fantasy), a character in a fictional fantasy context Entertainment Books * ''The Magician'', an 18th-ce ...
have utilized tricks to perform eyeless-sight feats. In the 1880s
Washington Irving Bishop Washington Irving Bishop, also known as Wellington (4 March 1855 – 13 May 1889) was an American stage mentalist. He started his career as an assistant under the muscle reader J. Randall Brown, but was most well known for his performance of t ...
performed the "blindfold drive" with a horse-drawn carriage. In the early 20th century Joaquín María Argamasilla known as the "Spaniard with X-ray Eyes" claimed to be able to read handwriting or numbers on
dice Dice (singular die or dice) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing g ...
through closed metal boxes. Argamasilla managed to fool
Gustav Geley Gustav Geley (13 April 1868 – 15 July 1924) was a French physician, psychical researcher and director of the Institute Metapsychique International from 1919 to 1924.Charles Richet Charles Robert Richet (25 August 1850 – 4 December 1935) was a French physiologist at the Collège de France known for his pioneering work in immunology. In 1913, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "in recognition of his work on ...
into believing he had genuine
psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, ...
powers. In 1924 he was exposed by
Harry Houdini Harry Houdini (, born Erik Weisz; March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was a Hungarian-American escape artist, magic man, and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts. His pseudonym is a reference to his spiritual master, French magician ...
as a fraud. Argamasilla peeked through his simple blindfold and lifted up the edge of the box so he could look inside it without others noticing. A teenager from America named Pat Marquis known as "the boy with X-ray eyes" was tested by
J. B. Rhine Joseph Banks Rhine (September 29, 1895 – February 20, 1980), usually known as J. B. Rhine, was an American botanist who founded parapsychology as a branch of psychology, founding the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the ''Journ ...
and was caught peeking through the blindfold down his nose. Science writer
Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lewis ...
has written that the ignorance of blindfold deception methods has been widespread in investigations into objects at remote locations from persons who claim to possess eyeless vision. Gardner documented various conjuring techniques psychics such as Rosa Kuleshova, Linda Anderson and
Nina Kulagina Nina Kulagina, ''Ninel Sergeyevna Kulagina'' (russian: Нине́ль Серге́евна Кула́гина, born Ninel Mikhaylova) (30 July 192611 April 1990) was a Russian woman who claimed to have psychic powers, particularly in psychokinesis ...
have used to peek from their blindfolds to deceive investigators into believing they used eyeless vision. ''
Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' magazine reported on several cases on June 12, 1964, and on April 19, 1937, calling them "X-ray wonders", but all of them were found to be cheating when tested under controlled conditions. The article on 12 June reported on accounts of DOP in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. This focused on Rosa Kuleshova of Nizhni Tagil, whose alleged abilities were demonstrated on a TV programme called ''Relay'' watched by over 40 million viewers. This encouraged the mother of 9 year old Lena Blisznova to claim her daughter had similar abilities. They reported on the research of the psychologist Aleksei N. Leontiev, who used a
Pavlovian Classical conditioning (also known as Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) is a behavioral procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus (e.g. food) is paired with a previously neutral stimulus (e.g. a triangle). It also refers to the learn ...
techniques to explore DOP several years previously and then had the role of leading a research programme into the claimed phenomenon. Although Leontiev would only express his personal opinion that there was substance behind the alleged phenomenon, the
Russian American Russian Americans ( rus, русские американцы, r=russkiye amerikantsy, p= ˈruskʲɪje ɐmʲɪrʲɪˈkant͡sɨ) are Americans of full or partial Russian ancestry. The term can apply to recent Russian immigrants to the United Stat ...
expert on
Soviet Psychology The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
Gregory Razran Gregory H. Razran (4 June 1901, in Slutsk – 31 August 1973, in St Petersburg, Florida) was a Russian American expert on Russian psychological research. He left Russia in 1920 and studied at Columbia University gaining a doctorate in 1933. He move ...
was particularly excited about the research declaring "In all my years, I can't remember when anything has had me more excited than this prospect of opening up new doors of perception." Complaining that he was too excited to sleep at night, he opined that this was a "major scientific breakthrough" which would lead to an "explosive outburst of research" whose results were "bound to be revolutionary". Razran was keen to return to
Queens College, City University of New York Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body ...
, where he was a professor and planned to carry out further research himself. Razran had been head of the Psychology department at Queens since 1945, but relinquished the post in 1966. In 2010, an Italian lady known as R. G. who claimed she could peer inside sealed boxes with X-ray vision to describe what is inside was tested at the
University of Pavia The University of Pavia ( it, Università degli Studi di Pavia, UNIPV or ''Università di Pavia''; la, Alma Ticinensis Universitas) is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one ...
by
Massimo Polidoro Massimo Polidoro (born 10 March 1969) is an Italian psychologist, writer, journalist, television personality, and co-founder and executive director of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Pseudosciences (CICAP). Early lif ...
, chemist Luigi Garlaschelli and physicist Adalberto Piazzoli. Twelve objects were selected and placed in wooden boxes. She failed the test, getting only one object correct.
Joe Nickell Joe Nickell (born December 1, 1944) is an American skeptic and investigator of the paranormal. Nickell is senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and writes regularly for their journal, ''Skeptical Inquirer''. He is als ...
who has studied DOP has written "To date, no one has demonstrated convincingly, under suitably controlled conditions, the existence of X-ray sight or any other form of clairvoyance or ESP."


Scientific reception

Experiments into DOP by scientists have shown no effect. Alleged positive results haven't been accepted by the mainstream scientific community due to procedures not being tight enough to prevent cheating by participants, problems with replicating the effect reliably, and concerns about the colors being recognized by the texture of the ink on the paper (people who are blind from an early age can recognize
Braille Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are Blindness, blind, Deafblindness, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on Paper embossing, embossed paper ...
patters that only have .2 millimeters of elevation above the paper, and the limit of relief distinction in fingers is still unknown). In summary, DOP has not been demonstrated scientifically. Most of DOP positive results have been explained as cheating by participants, either via the use of magicians' tricks, or via "peeking down the nose" (cheating by participants) In recent years, DOP has been the object of mainstream research that had no links with ESP. Apart from trickery, there are several hypotheses about how fingers could "see" radiation emitted by the colors in the paper, but none have been tested successfully. For example, people can hold their fingers near to painted and non-painted surfaces, and distinguish them by how much corporal heat is radiated back to their fingers. While it has not been verified if fingers can be sensitive enough to detect heat radiation from different inks in paper, it is theorized that blind people could plausibly do it.


See also

*
synesthesia Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who re ...
, in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway


References


Bibliography (in English, Russian, and Ukrainian)

* Познанская, Н. Б. (1936). Кожная чувствительность к инфракрасным и к видимым лучам, «Бюл. экспер. биологии и медицины», т. 2, вып. 5. * Познанская, Н. Б. (1938). Кожная чувствительность к видимому и инфракрасному облучению, «Физиологический журнал СССР», т. XXIV, вып. 4. * Леонтьев, А. Н. Проблемы развития психики. М., МГУ, 1959 *Houdini, H. (1924)
''A Complete Exposure of Argamasilla, the Famous Spaniard who Baffled Noted Scientists of Europe and America, with His Claim to X-ray Vision''
Adams Press.

по вопросам кожно-оптической чувствительности * * * * * Мизрахи В.М. (1998)

( ttps://web.archive.org/web/20090614133849/http://disser.com.ua/contents/8557.html ''idem''. Диссертационная работа канд. психол. наук. Киев * *


External links




LIFE Magazine article (June 12, 1964)
{{Parapsychology Parapsychology Paranormal terminology Pseudoscience Vision