The Solar System Model of Sensory Stimulation
Study it closely.
The human body is a complex and delicate machine that is capable of consciously experience the world. Every second of the day, a massive amount of data of the outside world are streaming to our senses even in sleep. If you put a human in a small room with little sensory stimulation like in a solitary confinement he will become unhappy very quickly. (http://www.zdnet.com/article/quietest-place-on-earth-causes-hallucinations/) On the other hand, when our senses are stimulated in the right way, we feel pleasure. The sweet smell of flowers, the view of the horizon, and the roar of the rain all remind us that we are alive. In fact, humans are known to voluntarily pursue activities that will arouse their sensitive organs. The solar system model of sensory stimulation is a map to understand this intricate behavior. The model can also be used to design projects and activities that will leverage the senses to entertain and influence. Virtual reality for example.
Before we go to the model, we must first establish the dimensions of the sensory stimulations. They are variety, intensity and frequency.
The Three Dimensions of Sensory Stimulation
X dimension = Intensity: Generally the more intense the stimuli, the more pleasure it brings. A good song is better listened on a loud volume than a quiet one because the brain picks up more intricate patterns when it is louder. A sunny day is more beautiful to look at than cloudy nights. However one has to be careful when designing the intensity of the stimuli. Different people have different temperaments and sensitivity of the nervous system. Autistics and introverts generally have more sensitive nervous systems which means they experience the world much more intensely than most people. As a result, they enjoy doing quieter tasks like reading and painting. An extrovert party animal for example have a less sensitive nervous system compare to the general population. So, she enjoys more intense activities like going to clubs or gigs. Even when they do less intense activities like writing they need to listen to music so that they won’t get bored. So figuring out who you are designing the experience for matters a lot.
Y dimension = Frequency: The more frequent a stimuli is experienced the more it become familiar. Familiarity is the heart of brand loyalty and the building of relationships. People usually like listening to their favorite songs multiple times a day shortly after they found them because they get enjoyment from repetition. After they listened for 50 times or more however, it doesn’t give as much pleasure anymore compare to the first few times. Equally significant, having sex with your love partner for the first 5 times are the best experiences compare to the sex 5 years later. Too little frequency does not give enough time for the brain to grow attachment to the stimuli. Too much creates boredom. By manipulating frequency, the complex experience of nostalgia can be created. For example, you have listened to your favorite song for 50 times and got bored of it. So you stopped listening it for a year. Then one day you decided to listen to your favorite song again. At that moment you feel a wave of nostalgia and the original pleasure of listening to that song. The boredom has been reset and it is replaced by nostalgia.
Z dimension= Variety: The theory of variety states that when more senses are stimulated, a more immersive experience is generated and hence cause more pleasure. A diverse combination of different stimuli for the same sense also creates compound effects. A great restaurant not just serves delicious food with irresistible smell, but it also provides auditory stimulations such as classical music and visual stimulations such as beautiful interior designs. Moreover the combinations of the stimuli must be changing constantly to maintain a sense of variety in place. Too little variety of stimulation will lose the attention of the person very quickly. Too much variety will cause anxiety and confusion. Her Majesty’s Theater in London for example understands the principle of variety very well. It engages multiple senses of the audience through lighting, sound design, character costumes, the orchestra and the stage design. That’s why theaters are still popular today. You won’t get the same experience anywhere else.
Remember that these three dimensions are constantly working on all of the senses at once. Now that you understand the dimensions, we will go straight to the solar system model of the sensory stimulation. The strength of the senses are organized based on the size of the objects in the solar system.
The Sun is by far the largest object in the solar system. In this model it represents the human body, the emergent combinations of all senses. The brain combines data from all the senses to provide a complete subjective experience of the world. We rely on it every day. Neuroscientists still don’t understand how the brain achieves this incredible feat effortlessly. Walking through a park for instance stimulate all of the senses of the human body. You see the green leaves, grasses and the lake. You hear the birds chirping and the whistling sound of the wind. You smell the wood and the mud. Your skin feels the pressure of the wind and the temperature of the environment. The brain combines all of these information in a coherent experience of 'walking in the park'. Moreover humans also have a surprising ability to detect the inner state of their bodies. The inner organs, the circulation system, the hormonal surge, we can detect them. It’s most apparent when we are experiencing strong emotions. Before we feel a strong emotion, the inner physiological state becomes aroused and then we determine whether this arousal is due to anger, lust or hunger. Afterwards, we look for clues in the outside environment for the cause of the emotion (Two factor theory of emotion). This inner body sensitivity is the reason why humans are emotional creatures. Another reason why this is important is because sensory stimulations can activate inner body states that cause emotions. In other words, the outside environment can forcefully generate emotion in our bodies. For example, a cold dark night cause loneliness and fear while a bright warm afternoon brings joy.
The Jupiter is the biggest planet in the solar system with approximately 140,000 kilometers in diameter. Therefore it is a relevant representation of the strongest sense of the human body, the visual sense. Since we have evolved as hunters, our eyes are located on the front of the face and they are by far the most used organs. A large chunk of the brain, the visual cortex is dedicated to processing visual information including shapes, angles, distance, depth, colors, faces etc. Most of modern technologies like laptops, TVs, smartphones all boasts higher resolutions for the sole purpose of stimulating the eyes. A breathtaking colorful sunset pleases us while ugly faces don’t. Beauty is a very important quality that pleases the visual cortex and the golden ratio has something to do with it. Sitting in an underground tube is boring for the eyes because one hardly sees anything interesting. That’s why it can be a dreadful experience especially when you are tired from work. If you want your product to catch the attention of a person, capture his visual attention. If it looks cool and interesting, people will check it out.
The second largest planet with roughly 120,000 km in diameter isSaturn. Saturn represents our second strongest sense, the auditory sense. While in our mother’s womb, a fetus can detect voices from outside the uterus. It is the earliest sense through which the baby experiences the world. Not to mention that verbal communication is by far our primary method to transmit social and factual information. Any public speaker knows that how you speak is more important than what you speak. Men has to been lead to war many times through words and also to peace. Moreover we love listening to music. In fact music is one of the universal elements of humanity. Great songs have the power to engage every area of the brain. When you watch a blockbuster movie for example, 80% of emotions are generated by the soundtracks alone. Those who are born blind can navigate around the environment almost as well as those who can see. Sounds can profoundly map the texture of the environment and the brain can pick out navigational information out of the auditory data. All in all, engaging this sense will never go wrong.
Uranus is the third largest planet with around 51,000 km in diameter. This beautiful bluish planet will represent the combination of two very integrated senses, smell and taste. The perception of flavor is a complex experience generated by the brain by using multiple sensory information such as smell, taste, texture and temperature. Cooking has become the art to arouse both the sense of smell and taste together just like how a painting would arouse the eyes. World class chefs have the uncanny ability to create the most enchanting dishes one can ever experience. That’s because they understand how the perception of flavor works. We also love good smells. The powerful influence of the perfume industry proves this fact. Certain smells are known to conjure old memories and is therefore a powerful tool to build familiarity. The preference of good smells are somewhat cultural but foul smells are universally shunned because they indicate spoilage and disease. We have the astonishing ability to discriminate over 10,000 different kinds of smells. Our noses are not as powerful as the dogs’ but we can distinguish more different smells. Certain perfumes indicate sexuality as well. Men cologne indicates confidence and power. Women perfume generally entails innocence and nurturing quality. When we smell something nice we lick our lip with the tongue regardless of whether the smell is related to food or not. This indicates the taste and smell sensory information must converge before being fully interpreted by the brain.
Neptune has a similar size to Uranus but it is slightly smaller with 49,550 km in diameter which will represent the sense of touch. This is a perfect analogy because the sense of touch is usually on par with the sense of smell and taste in terms of sensitivity. Our versatile skin can detect pressure, vibration, temperature and even electricity indirectly from the body hair. Most sensitive areas of the body are called erogenous zones. Touching and stroking them will cause relaxation or sexual response depends on the intensity or frequency of the touch. The success of massaging and acupuncture industry means that humans enjoys being soothed through artistic touch. Moreover hugging, kissing, hitting, tickling all involves touching the other person and each action produce different social emotions. Engaging the sense of touch is not easy because the stimuli can produce unpredictable emotions. When it’s done right however, the touch stimuli can transform into a lot pleasure.
As you may know, the rocky planets are much smaller than the gas giants in the outer solar system. However they are much denser. The following senses that are represented by the rocky planets also have similar properties. They are usually working in the background but their sensory input is denser when they are forcefully activated. It means these small senses can overtake the attention of the brain when something goes wrong.
As the fifth biggest planet, Earth fits well to represent the fifth strongest sense, balance and acceleration (vestibular system). In my opinion, it is the most underappreciated sense. Some of us love skiing, skateboarding or surfing because they stimulate the vestibular system behind the inner ear that handles the balance of the body. Honing our ability to balance on any surface has been an important preoccupation since we stood on two feet. Vestibular organ is regarded as the oldest organ in the animal kingdom since the oldest fossils of the multicellular organisms from 500 million years ago show traces of them. It probably evolved primarily to detect the gravitational field of the planet. In other words, it can also detect acceleration and movement. The reason why we love driving fast cars or riding bicycles is because they creates a rush of excitement in our inner ear. Additionally, the amusement park is filled with rides that engages the vestibular system. The roller coaster is a famous example. They create a sense of terrifying thrill by overclocking it. Here is an important fact to keep in mind when designing projects for the balance organ. Although the vestibular system is a very fast sense used to generate reflexes to maintain perceptual and postural stability, compared to the other senses of vision, touch and audition, vestibular input is perceived with delay.
Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system and so it is relevant to represent thermoception. If you remember, I said temperature plays a role in creating the perception of flavor. In a more significant way, the temperature of a location constitute much of the mood that we associate with it. For example, the Caribbean is hot and exciting. Sweden is cold and depressing. We also tend to project our emotions on weather and seasonality. Furthermore it is the easiest sense to use in order to create discomfort since the range of temperatures we find comfortable is quite narrow.
Mars is the second smallest planet with only 6786 km in diameter and it will represent our second weakest sense, proprioception. A human has the innate ability to feel her position in space as well as the location of every part of her body because the brain contains a 1-to-1 body maps in its neural network. This kinesthetic sense works in tandem with the vestibular system to maintain balance and posture of the body at all times. Playing sports, dancing, and doing martial arts all stimulate this unique sense. It is a special joy to move our bodies the way we want. That good feeling is hard to describe. In ancient times singing and dancing have always been done at the same time. Nowadays we are culturally shunned from dancing in public but secretly we still love moving our bodies. Night clubs are successful because it creates a friendly environment that encourages active movement.
Lastly Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system and it makes sense to represent the sense of pain. Pain is unlike any other sense because it acts as a safety valve for the other senses. It is a very useful homeostasis mechanism to make sure that the senses are receiving appropriate levels of stimuli at all times. When everything is working properly, pain is non-existent. But when the body is overly stimulated to the point of causing damage, when the acceptable threshold is violated, pain receptors activate. Not surprisingly, intense pain has the ability to overtake every other senses by activating the reflex mechanisms. This is to avoid the dangerous stimuli that caused the pain in the first place. Oddly enough, humans are the only creatures on the planet who sometimes experience pleasure from pain. Some sexual pleasures are derived from causing pain to the body. Depressed individuals self-harm to experience a sense of control from their miserable life. After experiencing a severe pain, the body naturally produces opioids to reduce it. These people become more addicted to the opioids if they hurt themselves regularly.
Using sight, temperature and vestibular to create a feeling of joy
How to use this model: This model is very useful in helping you think critically on how to engage humans by stimulating their senses. Firstly you choose an emotion that you want to produce. Let’s say you want to create a feeling of joy. Then select three relevant sensory channels you want to focus on for example sight, temperature and vestibular. The reason why it is three and not more is to avoid confusion. The difficulty of designing a sensory experience exponentially increases when you add each new planet. Be bold though when you choose the planets to create new experiences. Secondly organize the planets with the sun always in the middle according to the picture above. The three dimensions are placed on top of the planets so that you can use them in your thinking. Thirdly brainstorm on how you can use each sense to create a joyful feeling and then figure out how you can combine the three senses together to create a more immersive and emotional experience. The three dimensions provide a lot combinations to experiment on. This means multiple A-B testing with real people are required to get the results you want.