Equilibrioception

Or, "sense of balance" as Wikipedia calls it. I've been doing a little bit of experimentation. I know when I spin my chair around as fast as possible (until I reach a sort of "equilibrium" where I feel no acceleration, then stop, it takes a while for me to stop being dizzy, as would be expected. But I just recently realized that the sense of dizzyness is NOT due to my physical state (kinesthetic sense) because I can tell that I'm not moving. It's purely VISUAL. (And I'm kind of wondering if it's the same for other people.)

In the past, I realized that the feeling of which direction is "up" is not just a feeling but an actual visual perception. When you turn your head and look at a picture frame, you can still tell if it's on the wall crooked, even though your head is tilted. I had always wondered why when I tilted my head, my eyes were at an angle but it didn't seem like the world changed at all. Even when a person's body is at any angle, even upside-down, he or she is still able to tell whether something is upright or not. Clearly the visual is linked directly to the inner ear sense.

Well, when I was spinning on my chair the other day, I realized once I stopped that it seemed everything was at a DIAGONAL angle, and constantly looping visually (probably a result of trying to track the motion of the spinning visually prior to the stop). The angle gradually decreased until it finally looked level again, a process which took 15 seconds. I am guessing that it corresponds to the amount of fluid motion in the inner ear, and that I probably held my head at an angle while spinning. However, I did not get the same result when spinning to the right: instead the lines just seemed wobbly.

Then, strangely on-topic, a safety training presentation was posted on the Civil Air Patrol website about spatial disorientation: http://www.capmembers.com/media/cms/Spatial__Disorientation_1EB70933CA251.ppt Very informative!
There are types of motion that trick your body into thinking it's moving one way and is really not. I'm wondering how that's linked to the visual sense too, and if that's an integral part of making sense of it all.

So now, knowing all of this, I think more experimentation is in order. I want to try spinning left vs. right, head tilted vs. not, and eyes closed vs. eyes open. I'm wondering if the time it took to readjust differs for different people or different physical situations or awareness. If you have any personal experience or information on this, share it in the comments! And let the mad science begin! (Or, if these experiments sound like a bad idea and I might hurt myself, let me know too... I don't think it would do any harm, but I don't know everything.)

Oh and also, check out this cool thing about visual cognition: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7524529047833923429#

Seeking and Finding

A few things today. I was thinking about theoretical physics. I'm trying to get some real heroes, people who have influenced me throughout the years. I already made a list of artists (elsewhere) but I noticed quite a few scientists who have also influenced the field of visualization, and/or are personally inspiring to me:

Erwin Schrödinger - I studied him in high school, drew a picture of him too.
Max Planck - one of the founders of Quantum Mechanics, always cool. It turns out I agree with a lot of his philosophy.
Hendrik Lorentz - Lorentz transformations, space and time.
Pierre-Simon Laplace - inventor of our well known Laplace transforms.
Joseph Fourier - Fourier transforms.
Joseph Louis Lagrange - more related to calculus, but anyhow...some of you might recognize the "Lagrange point" idea from sci-fi/aerospace.
Nikola Tesla - because he's awesome.
Roger Penrose - Penrose steps, other impossible geometry, really cool tiling methods. Geometry. Yes.

I feel like I'm like two people, a split consciousness... the technical side and the artistic side. Am I a complete person, since I have the two parts? Is a complete person made of only two parts? We like to divide things up into dualities...but I'm not quite sure it is so.

So I came up with a list of parts that people require to be full people. You can debate these or not. It is not exhaustive. It is only my random thoughts for now.
Physical - lots of parts.. skeleton, flesh, blood. Flesh is divided into muscles (things that move the skeleton) and organs (things that do stuff).
Mental - creativity (artistic), reasoning (technical), senses, memory
Spiritual - Moral, Mystical (6th sense?)

Then I was listening to something about the sense of Curiosity/Interest/Anticipation ... which is apparently what's caused by Dopamine! It's not the "pleasure" sense, it's more the "seeking" sense. Listen here: [link]
I was struck by how I am always seeking things. It's why I play video games. It's why I joined Civil Air Patrol. It's what I'm always doing in my dreams. And it's the most fun thing in the world. I love exploring. I love seeking knowledge, and sharing it so other people can become interested and start seeking for themselves! I realized I always try to understand the way the world works, because I haven't quite figured it all out yet. It's the realm of all the sciences, the arts, and philosophy. And I love exploring realms of fiction too: new universes, vast and amazing. So, here's to seeking! Video games really are drugs.

Architectural "Place" in video games

I found this while I was looking through some of my thesis work from last year.

A feeling of "place" in Aquaria is tied to the character interactions and lighting.

1. If a place is dark and full of creatures, it feels hostile.
   
2. If a place is bright and full of creatures, it feels vibrant and full of life.
3. If a place is bright and full of non-enemies, it also feels peaceful, joyous.
4. If a place is bright and empty, it is lonely but contemplative.
5. If a place is dark and empty, it's spooky (ex: the ruins)
6. If a place is dark entirely (no light at all), it feels claustrophobic and inspires despair.

The type of space also matters:
- Complicated/simple - affects frustration and disorientation
- Open/closed - affects claustrophobia or freedom
- Obstacles and enemies? - affects tension/frustration

Music/sound also affects this a great deal. Happy music can even make a dark space feel non-threatening. Ominous music can even make a bright space feel spooky. Tense music can add drama even to easy battles.

I thought some of this might be fairly obvious, but it's good to get it all down. I have tried to abstract the rules enough that they apply to other games or other media. But the unique thing for games is the interactions and movement through the space. The important thing is to make the place in the game match the plot. If a place is said to be scary, it should actually be scary to the player.