Re: [Phys-l] inversion goggles

[Bill Nettles <bnettles@uu.edu>]

I suspect that in addition to the brain making a correlation between vision and the motion of fingers and toes, there is a correlation between sight and inner ear semi-circular canal signals and  with audio.  Makes me wonder whether rotating mobiles above the crib of a newborn are actually bad for optical development. Sitting the baby upright and playing with their fingers and toes and letting them see your face as you make sounds might aid development.

I have never thought about the "bits" being mapped out of order. Interesting.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [mailto:phys-l-
> bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Marc "Zeke" Kossover
> Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 1:19 PM
> To: Forum for Physics Educators
> Subject: Re: [Phys-l] inversion goggles
>
>
>
> From: Anthony Lapinski <Anthony_Lapinski@pds.org>
> Sent: Thu, May 12, 2011 12:13:57 PM
>
> > P.S. I'm still trying  to figure out how our brain flips inverted
> images on
> > our retina so we see the  world as upright. My eye doctor once told
> me that
> > this is initially not true  for newborns -- that they literally see
> the
> > world inverted! Wow!
>
>
> The situation is even more complicated than most people present. This
> is hard
> to
> explain without pictures, but I'll do my best. After all the image
> isn't just
> upside down, but flipped left to right as well.
>
> Have you ever seen a coherent fiber optic bundle, sometimes called an
> image
> conduit? It is a collection of fiber optic strands designed in such a
> way that
> the fiber that starts at the top left on one end is the top left on the
> other
> end, the fiber that is directly to the right to the fiber on the top
> left on
> one
> end is directly to the right to the top left fiber on the other end,
> and so on.
> You can see an example of that here.
> <http://www.plastecs.com/images/taper%20letters.jpg>
>
> You might think that the nerves that connect our eyes to our optical
> cortex in
> the brain work that way, but I strongly suspect that they don't. The
> nerves do
> not remain coherent nor organized and get crossed by the time they make
> it to
> our brain.
>
> So an image that starts out on the retina
>
> 0000000
> 0000000
> 1111111
> 0000000
> 0000000
>
> might map to
>
> 0000101
> 0010000
> 1001001
> 0000000
> 0001000
>
> on the cortex. Part of learning how to see is learning what spots on
> the cortex
> are actually next to each other in the retina.
>
> I heard a radio report, but now can't find the citation, that babies
> learn to
> associate the brain mappings to the retina mappings by wiggling their
> fingers
> and toes. Their brains know that fingers, toes, arms and legs are solid
> objects
> and so the moving spots on the brain most all be next to each other on
> the
> retina.
>
> So, flipping the image over is hardly the biggest problem. It is just
> part of
> an
> even worse problem.
>
> -------------
>
> The most important bit is this: Your brain doesn't have a right side up
> and and
> an upside down. A little person isn't inside your head looking at a
> screen
> trying to make out the world.
>
> Marc "Zeke" Kossover
> _______________________________________________
> Forum for Physics Educators
> Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
> https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l