Re: Effect of Eye Position on Perception

[P3D Jim Crowell <crowell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 8:31 AM -0800 4/10/97, P3D Ronald W Doerfler wrote:
>        The teams show that the perceived alignment of objects in the visual
>field is systematically shifted in the period immediately before the so-
>called ``saccades'' -- the sudden movements of the eye that alters the
>position of the entire visual field.

This is the key phrase.  What's basically being said here is that if you
probe very carefully (and with a very simple visual scene, probably, that
doesn't contain other cues for spatial structure), you find that people's
percepts of space are slightly distorted for a small fraction of a second
around the time of a gaze shift.  I doubt it has implications for every day
life (or even that heightened form of consciousness obtained by looking in
a stereo viewer  :-)  ).

-Jim C.

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



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