Abstract
AN investigation has been carried out on some numerical links between visual space and a kinaesthetic sensitivity to spatial relationships. One type of experiment (purely visual) is based on Luneburg's concept of non-Euclidean visual space1 and on its modification by Blank2. I have designed another type of experiment (visuo-kinaesthetic)3 to investigate some effects of proprioception on vision. In these experiments an observer imagines himself moving towards two distant light points in the darkness and passing his forearm between them. He adjusts the gap between the two light points by remote control so that it equals the length of his forearm. The variables are C, the size of the gap between two light sources in a frontal plane, and R, the size of the forearm of the observer. (Other dimensions of the observer's body are considered in other trials.) These variables are compared with K, Luneburg's curvature of visual space, and r, the subjective distance of the stimuli from the eyes, as given by Blank in units of (−K)−½. The experiments show that C (which is approximately equal to R close to the observer) contracts sharply in the case of negative curvature with an increasing distance from the eyes (to a value several times smaller at a distance of several yards) but remains approximately constant with K ∼ 0 and expands with K > 0.
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References
Luneburg, R. K., Mathematical Analysis of Binocular Vision (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1947).
Blank, A. A., J. Opt. Soc. Amer., 48, 911 (1958).
Zajaczkowska, A., Ergonomics, Proc. Second I.E.A. Congress, Dortmund, 241 (1964).
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ZAJACZKOWSKA, A. Ultra-kinaesthetic Judgment of Size. Nature 213, 1270 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1038/2131270a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2131270a0
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