Illusion - Is Seeing Really Believing?/Illusion - Is Seeing Really Believing (1998)(Marshall Media)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/illusion/rock_fie.cxt/00373_Field_373.txt

Text File | 1996-12-31 | 2KB | 51 lines

    In a companion experiment,
we kept the tank stationary
while rotating the drum. Now
the fish swam vigorously in the
direction of the drumΓÇÖs motion,
keeping pace with it, even
though there was no current.
This condition would be
regarded as the optomotor
paradigm, whereas the one
with the rotating tank and
stationary drum would not. But
they are psychologically and
behaviorally identical. They
both illustrate that a
surrounding visible structure,
when moving, generates or
induces an experience of self-
motion, while the structure
itself appears to be stationary.
In an animal such as a fish,
that experience in turn
generates a tendency to
compensate for such unwanted
movement of the self; the
animal attempts to maintain its
position in its perceived world.
In a human observer, the self-
motion seems to be tolerated; it
elicits no behavior designed to
nullify it, at least in an
experimental situation. (In a
more natural situation, such as
in a river, a person might well
react as the fish does, by
swimming upstream in order
not to be carried away
downstream.) The optokinetic
response is undoubtedly
motivated by the tendency to
stabilize the moving image, but,
according to the present
hypothesis, it has nothing to do
with induced self-motion. It
occurs both when the drum
appears to be rotating and the
self is stationary and when the
drum appears to be stationary
and the self is experienced as
moving.