Study sheds light on brain's perception of falling objects
Monday, May 2, 2011 - 11:20
in Psychology & Sociology
If you thought that judging the position of a falling object is easier when you're lying on your side, think again. New research, led by the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Biological Cybernetics in Germany and presented in the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE, shows that while the physical laws governing object stability are well represented by the brain, you can better determine how objects fall when you're upright. The results shed new light on existing theories of how humans perceive the physical stability of objects.