Publications by authors named "S Gravano"
Article Synopsis
- * Astronauts participated in experiments where they imagined throwing and catching a ball, both on Earth and in space, adjusting their techniques based on the perceived gravity.
- * The study's findings indicate that mental imagery can enhance astronauts' ability to calibrate their movements and timing during spaceflight, potentially improving their overall performance and adaptation to zero gravity.
People easily intercept a ball rolling down an incline, despite its acceleration varies with the slope in a complex manner. Apparently, however, they are poor at detecting anomalies when asked to judge artificial animations of descending motion. Since the perceptual deficiencies have been reported in studies involving a limited visual context, here we tested the hypothesis that judgments of naturalness of rolling motion are consistent with physics when the visual scene incorporates sufficient cues about environmental reference and metric scale, roughly comparable to those present when intercepting a ball.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is considerable evidence that gravitational acceleration is taken into account in the interaction with falling targets through an internal model of Earth gravity. Here we asked whether this internal model is accessed also when target motion is imagined rather than real. In the main experiments, naïve participants grasped an imaginary ball, threw it against the ceiling, and caught it on rebound.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- * It highlights the brain's ability to integrate various sensory cues—both visual and non-visual—to estimate spatial orientation and measure the passage of time, adapting based on different tasks.
- * The article reviews behavioral evidence suggesting that our internal model of gravity helps us with various tasks like intercepting falling objects and navigating spaces, reflecting on the naturalness of motion influenced by gravity.
Article Synopsis
- - Our brains constantly deal with ambiguous or missing sensory info, especially with visual cues, which are crucial for understanding our surroundings.
- - When objects we focus on become temporarily obscured, our brain can predict their movement, using past experiences and short-term memory to fill in the gaps.
- - Recent studies in eye movement and hand coordination have highlighted the brain areas involved in this prediction process, enhancing our understanding of how we interpret and react to visual information.