Monday, September 28, 2009 George Stratton was the first to
address these concerns. In his 19th century experiment “Vision
without inversion of the retinal image”, he built a set of
goggles out of 2 double convex lenses. This would provide the
retina with a previously inverted image. When the subject
initially wears the glasses, he is disoriented. The world he
sees is upside down. Physical movement is very difficult if the
wearer relies solely on the visual image. If the wearer places
his hands out in front of him, they seem to come from above.
Stratton claimed that with time, the wearer adapted to the
goggles and experienced the world in an upright state. Some
researchers dispute this claim. They believe that with
adaptation, it is not that our vision appears upright again, but
that because we’ve experienced the world in an upright manner
and learned spatial clues over time, we can interpret the visual
image we see while wearing the goggles. If this is so, it comes
as a result of perceptual constancy. As in