Re: [Phys-l] inversion goggles

[Stefan Jeglinski <jeglin@4pi.com>]

> 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!

This seems easily refuted? If a baby sees your legs pointing up and 
head down, and you make a motion toward your legs, then you should 
see the baby's eyes go up as it eagerly and happily follows your 
motion down. Etc. I'm picturing Feynmann asking this sort of 
question? Maybe it's a dumb question, but I'm happy to be dumb for a 
bit, in the interest of education.

Google this question and see that the notion is strongly perpetuated 
and seems well-liked, especially by new parents, who don't think of 
their new babies as anything other than the most special thing ever 
invented. There seem to be very few (any?) sites that cite any 
science behind the notion. The notion also appears to claim that the 
effect is a newborn phenomenon only, and "corrects" within a couple 
of days. So if it were to be validated, it would have to have come 
from research done literally on newborns. I surmise that this is 
likely to have happened in a mostly anecdotal fashion, except maybe 
for (this is the closest I have been able to find anything I would 
come close to believing on this topic, and it still is written for 
lay people):

http://www.opt.indiana.edu/people/faculty/candy/what_can_a_baby_see.html

In large measure, they address the question by not considering it, 
which may say a lot.


Stefan Jeglinski