James Kirk* remembers what it was like to be sensitive to sounds in elementary school. “Loud noises were probably the worst for me,” he says. “The other kids laughed when I crawled under my desk during a fire drill.” In addition to the problem in response to loud noises such as bells or sirens, he had difficulty paying attention to his teacher or focusing on schoolwork because he could not filter out the distractions in his classroom. “I picked up bits and pieces of what was being said, but I didn’t do so well back then because I was always looking around to locate the sources of the noises that no one else seemed aware of.”
This kind of sensitivity to noise and sound can be unrelated to a person’s ears or sense of hearing. Instead, it has to do with the way their brain perceives and interprets sounds.
I remember being mystified that no one else reacted to the sounds our squeaky pencils made on paper. The loudness felt like being poked, with no way to stop it.–James Kirk
Hijacked Attention
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Bu hikaye Muse Science Magazine for Kids dergisinin May/June 2021 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Who's Your Cousin?
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To figure out if we can die of boredom, we first have to understand what boredom is. For help, we called James Danckert, a psychologist who studies boredom at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
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SERGE WICH
Serge Wich’s favorite days at work are spent out in the forest, studying orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo or chimpanzees in Tanzania.
ELODIE FREYMANN
When you’re feeling sick, it probably doesn’t occur to you to try eating tree bark.
Guardians of the Forest
EARLY, MAKESHIFT WILDLIFE DRONES HELPED TO DETECT AND PROTECT ORANGUTANS.
APE ANTICS
The Whirling World of primate play
Dr. Ape Will See You Now
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THE LEFT OVERS
A lot has happened for modern humans to get to this point. We lost most of our hair, learned how to make tools, established civilizations, sent a person to the Moon, and invented artificial intelligence. Whew! With all of these changes, our bodies have changed, too. It’s only taken us about six million years.
SO, WHAT IS A PRIMATE?
What do you have in common with the aye-aye, sifaka, siamang, and potto? If you said your collarbone, you re probably a primatologist—a person who studies primates. If you’re not, read on.
