Playing Ball in Space

oo7tushar writes "Although most experiments in space seem simple they have profound results. Take this for example, astronauts trying to catch a ball in space. What's so hard about that? Nothing much really, down here on Earth. In space it's a completely different story. Here on earth our eyes see the ball and our brain anticipates it's movement according to gravity. In space the brain continues to anticpate gravity but unlike motion sickness (which is adapted to within days), astronauts continue to anticipate the path of a ball for 15 days (after which they start to show progress). What are the ramifications? The brain must have some sort of internal gravitation model."

Comments

Just like...

[niftyeric]

this article. Oh well..

the Guinness effect

[tongue]

Does that explain why a dozen pints of guinness seems to amplify earths gravity to the point that I can't pick myself up off the bar or floor?

Nothing special...

[tom_newton]

about us having a "gravitation model" in our heads.
Surely it's just called "experience"?

Encoding Specificity

[Transient0]

An internal gravitation model would be theorizing far more than is necesarry to account for the data. In cognitive science, there has long been an understanding of encoding specificity. This simply means that data, including skill knowledge, is best retrieved from human memory under the same conditions which it was learned.

An example from the real world is underwater welding. When underwater welders were first being trained, the companies tried to simply train professional welders in all the ways that underwater welding was different from normal welding. But, in diong this, they found that when they were underwater, the welders had serious trouble calling on those skills which supposedly transferred over unchanged. As a result, they had to be entirely retrained in skills they had apparently already learned.

Similarly, if you lose your keys while you're stoned and then can't find them the next day. Psychological evidence shows that your best chance to find them is to get stoned again and then look for them.

Any number of other controlled psychological experiments have been performed to domonstrate this same effect(memorizing words under different lighting conditions, etc.). I don't see why gravitation would be any different.

Re:Encoding Specificity

[sunhou]

Re: learning welding underwater -- when I visited Australia, driving was a somewhat similar experience (driving on the opposite side of the road from what I was used to).

At first, it was hard because everything was the opposite of what I knew. But within a few days, I simply learned to reverse my innate responses, since I knew that those responses were backwards, and so it got easier. But after a couple of weeks, I had started to get accustomed to the new configuration, and so some of my natural responses were correct. That meant I could no longer just "do the opposite of what felt natural", and it actually got harder again and took more thought; I always had to think "is my gut feeling about what to do an old gut feeling from the US, or a newly acquired gut feeling from the past couple of weeks in Australia?"

I was there for about 4 or 5 weeks. When I got back to the US, within a day, I promptly drove on the wrong side of the road. (It was a small road with no traffic, so fewer cues, and I did catch myself within a few seconds before causing any major havoc.)

Maybe it isn't the gravity...

[qurob]

Whenever the jocks threw balls at the geeks at school, they never caught them either :)

Or you could read this article...

[pwagland]

also on Slashdot...

And again, I say, so what? It takes the human body a while to accustomise yourself to a new environment, this is hardly breaking news!

Any SysAdmin who has gone from Solaris to AIX could tell you exactly the same thing! :-)

Isaac Asimov used this for a SF story

[Seth Finkelstein]

Isaac Asimov wrote a prescient short story "The Singing Bell", about this effect. The plot hinges on proving that a man has recently been to the moon, by catching him off-guard in catching something as if he was on the moon (i.e. he had adapted to the lunar gravity in terms of ball-catching). Absolutely great science-fiction story.

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Re:What a ridiculous notion

[well_jung]

That it took practice is exactly correct. It's like catching a ball from a different quarterback that throws sidearm with his left hand. If the trajectory and acceleration are substantively different, it will take a while to get comfy. I suspect a well practiced juggler could adjust to the diffences in Space fairly quickly.

Honestly, that a coupla of guys with PHDs in Physics couldn't catch a ball doesn't suprise me all that much.

Dogs, calculus, and fetch.

[B1]

Has anybody else read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency? (Douglas Adams)

In one passage, I believe Dirk is explaining that we don't give credit to dogs for their ability to perform complex calculus in realtime.

For example, when you play fetch, your dog is able to analyze the trajectory and velocity of a thrown ball. Based on his observation of the throw, he solves a complex three-dimensional physics problem involving a system of differential equations based upon the underlying physics. He does this fast enough that he is able to position himself to catch the ball.

Of course, that's *most* dogs...our dog wasn't so good at catching things. I think he was more of an "arts" dog. :)

Re:What a bunch of crap

[JordanH]

• The ramifications? Well, people are going to, like have to, like, train for the new environment! Quick, call the cops!

A much more serious ramification is that researchers are noting that children exposed to gravity seem to have a much greater facility with walking down staircases than those who aren't. It's a mutation!