Inversion Goggles Activities

Title

Contents

Slide 3 Introduction to Inversion Goggles

Slide 4 Important Guidelines

Slide 5 Practice Makes Perfect – Is It True?

Slide 6 continued

Slide 7 maze (to print out)

Slides 8 - 9 Suggestions for Activities using Foam Balls (1 – 4)

Slide 10 Suggestions for other Activities (5 – 6)

Slide 11 Activities involving movement whilst wearing the Goggles (7 – 8)

Slide 12 Things to Think About

Introduction to Goggles

These plastic safety goggles can be used to show how the brain deals with distorted visual inputs and how quickly we can adapt to this incoming visual data.

Vision through the goggles is completely inverted, so everything viewed appears to be upside down.

Important GuidelinesIMPORTANT GUIDELINES

Please read before beginning activities using the goggles

Take care NOT to drop the goggles as this could damage the prism.

Do NOT wear the goggles for more than 15 minutes at a time as perceptual distortions can last for up to another hour after removing the goggles.

Only stand up wearing the goggles in a clear open space away from desks, chairs etc and have someone standing close by in case of overbalancing.

Do NOT run wearing the goggles.

When throwing the foam balls to someone wearing the goggles ALWAYS throw underarm.

Practice Makes Perfect?

The inversion goggles should NOT be worn for long periods. However, you can investigate whether practising for a few minutes every day improves your ability on a visual task.

You might like to try:

• reaching out for an object held up in front of you

• shaking hands with someone standing in front of you. After perfecting this task, swap hands to see if this is easier now you have practised.

• sitting on the floor and try to catch a coin being rolled towards you.

continued

The inversion goggles should NOT be worn for long periods. However, you can investigate whether repetition of a simple task makes it easier.

You might like to try:

• writing your name on a whiteboard

• drawing a smiley face on a whiteboard

• making your way through a maze with a pencil. This is very difficult.

(printable maze on next slide)

Printable maze

www.uniview.co.uk

Suggestions using Foam Balls 1 - 2

1. One person stands in an open space wearing the goggles and another person throws a ball to them underarm; they

have to try and catch the ball.

2. If you have two sets of goggles then two people can throw the ball to each other (virtually impossible!).

Foam Balls 3 - 43. One person wearing goggles gets down on their hands

and knees in the middle of an open space; from the corner of the room another person rolls the ball slowly towards them so that they can attempt to reach it.

4. Place an empty waste paper bin or similar in the middle of the room and the person wearing goggles has to throw the ball into the bin using one hand only. After about 5 – 7 throws they should be able to get the ball into the bin. Change the throwing arm and watch the adaptation process begin again.

The person wearing goggles does not learn to see the visual fields as displaced. They learn that they need to make new motor responses to correspond to the new visual field. This shows that the adaptation is of motor processes and not of visual processes.

Suggestions for Other Activities 5 - 6

5. Place a selection of coins (or sweets) on a table. Lead the person wearing the goggles over to the table and sit them down. Tell them that they can keep the first coin (or sweet) that they touch.

6. Draw a circle on the board (diameter of about 8 cm / 3 in). The person wearing goggles has to draw a cross in the

centre of the circle. As before, they will succeed after 5 – 7 attempts. Draw another circle on the board and ask them to repeat the procedure with their other hand.

Once again, the brain produces an adaptive motor response with the first hand but this adaptation will not be transferred to the second hand: it must be relearned.

Activities involving Movement 7 – 8

7. Clear a space in the room and draw a chalk line (or use a piece of tape) and the person wearing goggles has to try to walk along the line. Ensure that there is a responsible person walking at the side to avoid accidents.

8. The person wearing goggles stands in the centre of a circle of people. They have to walk over and shake hands with the person in the circle who has their hand outstretched.

Things to think aboutThings to Think About

Some of these activities are also suggested within the visual distortion goggles presentation. If you have both types of goggles, compare results of activities for the inversion goggles

and the lateral distortion goggles.

What do these activities tell you about how we adapt to conditions where our brain experiences distorted sensory input?

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