Changing Your Perceptual Set
Many years ago one of my favorite places to visit with my folks was St. Ignace, a small town just a across the Mackinaw Bridge in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. There was a attraction called The Mystery Spot.
When you went inside the strangely built house weird things happened to you that you couldn't explain. When you thouight you were going up you were actually going down. When you tried to go outside through a door you tipped over. Just between you, me and the lamp-post our two main ways of telling where we are with respect to the earths surface was fooled by our learning to walk.
What! This is supposed to be a forum about flying, you say!! It is! The Vestibular Apparatus, which is part of our Inner Ear, reacts to Gravity and Vision reacts to what we see that also helps us with where we are with respect to the earths' surface.
What does all this have to do with the Mystery Spot? First things first! A "plumb line" is a weighted object tied to a line that indicates a perpendicular angle to the earths surface.
Your home, if built on a hillside, has all its walls perpendicular to the earths surface, not to the surface contour of the hill. When you first tried to walk, as an infant, you tried aligning yourself with objects that told you that you were standing upright.
Before that time you kept sitting down as you lost your balance. Vestibular Apparatus and your messages you were getting from your environment through your sense of sight were not in agreement. Then, one great step forward for you and a step up in responsibility for your parents, you walked!
You found out that when you aligned yourself with a door or window that was vertical with respect to the earths surface, vision wise, (given everything else was ready) and your Vestibular Apparatus was not telling you to fall down, you took your first step (unassisted) and your world was never the same again.
You were using perceptual clues to learn to walk. This article is about the perceptual clues around your home that aided you in maintaining balance while learning to walk.
Imagine, if you would, a house that was built at right angles to the slope of a hill where it was located. All the doors and windows inside the home were also aligned to the slope of the hill.
Of course, gravity was still there doing its thing to your inner ear. When you entered the building you immediately tried to adjust your position on the face of the earth to the sides of the door and the windows, just like you did when you learned to walk for the first time. Opps! What do I do now! My inner ear is telling me I am about to fall!
That is the fun of any fun place! It scrambles your senses. In this case,your sense of balance is sending conflicting information. The reason, they built the home wrong. Now that you are down on your knees laughing like everyone else - how are you going to walk out of there instead of crawling out?
I didn't tell you one little item. The house didn't have a roof. You could see the trees( a good portion of the tops ) from inside the house.
If you focused on the trees rather than on the doors, walls and windows of the house you could stand and walk out. But, if for a second you forgot and used the doors, windows and walls to visually orient yourself, you immediately fell down again.
You could walk out of the "Mystery Spot House" if you changed your perception of whats important. Using the trees, which were growing perpendicular to the earths surface, rather than the homes physical appearance.
Now your two parts of your balance system are in agreement unless you revert to a different, unreliable perceptual set.
Basically, in flying, you are presented with visual illusions that create situations that, if not corrected....well, thats what Aviatiion Safety is all about. Keep on learning...it may save your life.
