Gibson: Chapter 4 - The Basic Orienting System Flashcards
Haptic
Perceiving by touch
Vision, taste, smell and all senses are based on
The basic orienting system (vestibular system)
Airplane Essay exam (why on an airplane….)
Why is it that, so long as a jet airplane moves uniformly, the traveller cannot feel movement? Gibson Chapter 4
Simple explanation from November 2nd part 2
-The vestibular system does not respond to constant movement, it is moving uniformly and the vestibular system needs ‘pushes’ and ‘pulls’ (discrete action) and when the vestibular system is confronted with uniform action it is not able to operate under those conditions. It is not limited, as we are terrestrial creatures where there is usually no unifrom action. (running, walking, jogging are all not uniform, so the vestibular system is able to pick up the information or acceleration or deceleration)
-Uniform = vestibular system not working
(however if the plane experiences turbulence or tough air, it becomes apparent immediately as it causes the plane to break that uniformity)
With respect to the chambers, the utricle and saccule, it is clear that an organ with a heavy statolith cannot by itself distinguish for its possessor between a state of rest and a uniform motion in a straight line, to use the terms invented by Newton (when the plane reaches altitude it is hard to distinguish the movement)
The vestibular organ is suited to detect active locomotion or passive starts and stops but not constant-velocity transportation
For millions of years animals moved by rhythmic pishes, not as Newtonian bodies and not in railroad cars and airplanes (pg 69 goes into depth)
If you feel like you are going up it might be that the plane accelerated, if you feel like you are diving down it may be that you slowed down
How does the perceiver feel what is he is touching instead of the cutaneous impressions and the bone postures, as such? Gibson Chapter 6
Cutaneous impressions are impressions on the skin and the bone posture are just the postures the bone adopt as the joints are connected. We can move our bones, with our muscles, as our bones are jointed.
So if the haptic system is dependant on cutaneous information and joint information? The architecture of the systems that is specified by the body and this architecture rests on the basic operating system (vestibular system) and so when the systems operate predictive and simultaneously joint and skin extract variance from variance stimulus. Which makes it clear what we are touching
Because psychology can explain how we get cutaneous impressions, along with bone posture too. These two sets can be combined
Answer from lecture: Covariation of Skin Sensitivity and Joint Sensitivity
The joints yield geometric information, that the skin yields contact information, and that in certain invariant combinations they yield information specifying the layout of external surfaces
pg 113 right side “Now to answer the question”
It is not that sensations from the skin and the joints are blended or fused when they occur together
Geometric information and the ______ ______ yield or yields contact information and that in certain _____ combinations they yield information specifying the layout of external surfaces
Discuss two processes for the calibration of subjective skeletal space, and the evidence for them. Gibson Chapter 7
Subjective skeletal space: what is straight ahead? up? down?
How to get looking straight, hearing straight, smelling straight all the same / calibrated? One option is that there is a comparison in the system (touch compares with vision, vision with hearing etc) and they split the difference
-another way to calibrate, which is within each system and you take the average of the calibration within each system and get a ‘straight ahead point. Both systems operate at the same time, a comparative system and a averaging system within each sense.
Hypothesis for each process, discuss evidence for each process
The terrestrial remains permanent orientation to the earth (aka chief constants)
Orientated to gravity and the surface of support (page 59 para 2) (gravity down, surface support up)
The detection of the stable permanent framework of the environment, sometimes called the perception of “space”
but that term implies something abstract and intellectual, whereas what is meant is something concrete and primitive - a dim, underlying, and ceaseless awareness of what is permanent in the world (pg 59, last sentence)
Statocyst
Organ for detecting the direction of gravity
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In the statocyst, there is a ______ pattern of nervous input that is very useful to the animal
unceasing (pg 60, 8thish sentence)
The neural input is _____ to the posture of the animals body
specific (pg 61, sentence 2)
An animal’s goal
Normalize pattern of input from hair cells of a statocyst
Statolith
Stone (composed of calcium carbonate) and it is heavy (weight)
If an animal is pushed forward the hairs bend ________, if pushed forward, the hair are bent _______
The hairs bend backwards
Bent forward
Statolith legs behind due to its weight
Some invertebrate animals have developed a more elaborate organs with specialized ____________ so as to clearly separate rotations from displacements, and to distinguish rotations from one another
Semicircular canals (pg 61 para 3 on right side)
The statocyst is sensitive to a displacement of the whole animal resulting from muscular action
It is not sensitive to muscular action directly but due to a displacement of the whole animal resulting from muscular action (pg 61 Passive and active arousal)
