Re: World upside-down

[P3D Jim Crowell <crowell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 3:04 PM 9/30/96, P3D Marvin Jones wrote:
>> Well, I have heard this story many, many times since I was in Jr.
>> High School -- and I have heard it just enough to be extremely
>> skeptical.  To put it bluntly, I don't believe it!  I am that way.  I
>> have a strong resistance to pseudo-science folklore, and this sounds
>> exactly like such cases.
>>
>I'm afraid I can't cite literature without doing more research than I care to
>bother with, but I didn't exactly pick the story up on the street corner. I
>first heard it a number of years ago in a psych class at USC from a guest
>lecturer who was one of the scientists who conducted the original
>experiment. He
>had photos of the experiment, and a pair of the original goggles used in it.
>I've seen the photos reproduced in other articles on the experiment since.
>If it
>is "pseudo-science folklore," it's the most complex scientific hoax since the
>Piltdown man.

I can't remember the citation either.  I do seem to remember, however, that
the subject's perception of the world didn't actually flip; what happened
was that their perceptual-motor linkages adapted to that they were able to
function normally in an upside-down world.  Not positive, but that's what I
remember...

-Jim C.

----------------------
Jim Crowell
Division of Biology
216-76
Caltech
Pasadena, CA
(818) 395-8337
jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



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