My use of computers over the past 20+ years has given me a new sense. When it activates, it feels like a little lightbulb is turned on in my brain, and I'm aware that there's something there that wasn't there before. It's like my own geeky version of Spiderman's "spidey sense."
I've been using computers for a very long time, and over that time period, I have done a lot of typing on keyboards, writing papers, essays, computer code, stories, planning projects and events. When I write, I use cut & paste a lot in all of my writing. I re-arrange words and sentences so that each sentence is a clear and concise delivery of information. i might copy and paste a website URL into an e-mail or as a reference in my notes. Maybe I'll copy some code from an example on the web into a new programming project.
My new sense is... the clipboard. Whenever you cut/copy some content (text, and image, an audio/video clip), it goes to an invisible place in the computer called the clipboard. And when you paste it, that content comes from the clipboard into whatever project you're working in. Somehow, for some reason, my body has developed a clipboard sense, and whenever I cut/copy, it activates this sense in my brain. I will sometimes, in the frenzy of the moment, find myself with a leftover "clipboard" indicator on in my brain and not know why it's there. I do a quick paste to check what's in the computer's clipboard and -- lo and behold -- it's a piece of a task that I haven't completed yet. Maybe it's the URL of a webpage I was going to check, or a section of code that I was re-arranging. It's like realizing that your hand is full, but not remembering what you picked up.
In school I learned that we have 5 senses (sight, taste, touch, smell, hearing), but in actuality we each have many more - according to some researchers, humans have more than 20 senses! One of my relatives has her own unique sense - Magnetoception, or the ability to detect magnetic fields. How did she discover this unusual ability? She found that she could tell, just by touching the outside of the plastic, whether an electric cable was live (carrying current) or not. For her it's more of a party trick, but I bet Magnetoception would be a very useful sense for an electrician!
I'm not sure that my clipboard sense will save my life or enhance my chances of survival or reproducibility, but it's an interesting example of brain plasticity. We are always learning, and our brains are constantly adapting to our surroundings. Stay curious, ya'll!
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