Abstract
Observers who lie supine with their heads inverted report large (up to 60°) tilt of a light line in an otherwise dark room when their heads and/or bodies are tilted. Most observers report that visual subjective vertical is tilted in the direction opposite to the head/body tilt. The results can be interpreted by employing a model developed by Mittelstaedt (1983), which suggests that visual subjective vertical is derived from a gravity vector transduced by vestibular and somesthetic receptors combined with “idiotropic vectors” that represent the orientation of the observer’s own head and body axes.
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This work was supported by Contract NAS 9-14538 between Miami University and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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Parker, D.E., Poston, R.L. Tilt from ahead-inverted position produces displacement of visual subjective vertical in the opposite direction. Perception & Psychophysics 36, 461–465 (1984). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207499
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207499