In my case there were 6 cards left over the light. After waiting a few more minutes, I thought that the light was getting more obvious so the experiment required me to begin adding cards back over the ones already on the flashlight. Although I did not get back to all 15 cards, I was able to see the light more easily the longer I was in the dark room even as I was adding cards back over the light.
The third experiment required that I fill 3 bowls with water. The first bowl was to be filled with very hot water, the second very cold water, and the third with a mixture of hot and cold. I then had to put the bowls so that my right hand was in front of the cold bowl, my left hand was in front of the hot bowl and the warm bowl was in between them. I then put my hands, right in the cold and left in the hot, and after around three minutes I put them in the warm bowl. The results were again surprising. The hot and cold seemed very hot at first but then as I got used to the temperature they began to not be too bad. When I put both hands in the warm bowl, the hot hand seemed warm and the cold hand seemed cool.
My explanation for these results is of course that my body was...
For example, in the sandpaper experiment my index finger seemed to lose some of the sensitivity to the coarse paper because obviously the paper did not change its level of coarseness. It had to be my finger and the sensory nerves between my finger and the brain that changed. I compare the dark room experiment to going to a movie. When you walk into a dark theater your body has to adjust by increasing the sensitivity to light. Basically, after the adjustment the body can see in the dark but obviously not as well as a cat. But our pupils do get bigger so that more light can enter the retina so the eye is more sensitive to light. When we exit the movie the opposite occurs, the retina gets less light because our pupils constrict. The amazing thing about this process is how quickly it must happen. The water temperature experiment reminds me of how my body adjusts to a hot bat. When I get in a nice hot bath my skin has to adjust to the warmth of the water but after a few minutes of lounging the water seems almost cold. It is more like my skin temperature went up more than the temperature of the bath water.
References
Psychology
