Visual Distortion Goggles Activities

Title

Contents

Slide 3 Introduction to Visual Distortion Goggles

Slide 4 Important Guidelines

Slide 5 Practice Makes Perfect – Is It True?

Slide 6 Dotty Sheet (to print out)

Slide 7 Shapes for colouring – rectangle and heart (to print out)

Slide 8 Shapes for colouring - circle with line through and pentagon (to print out)

Slides 9 - 10 Suggestions for Activities using Foam Balls (1 – 4)

Slide 11 Suggestions for other Activities (5 – 6)

Slide 12 Activities involving movement whilst wearing the Goggles (7 – 9)

Introduction to Goggles

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

Vision through the goggles is offset by approximately 300 because of the angled face of the prisms.

Important GuidelinesIMPORTANT GUIDELINES

Please read before beginning activities using the goggles

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

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 distorting goggles in the PsyKit 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:

• putting dots into the circles on the sheet provided.

• colouring in the outlines of the shapes on the sheets provided.

• catching a soft foam ball when it is thrown (underarm) to you.

Dotty Sheet – print out

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Heart and Rectangle – print out

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Circle with line through and Pentagon – print out

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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 - 9

7. Place a chair in the middle of the room (no desks or other chairs in the immediate vicinity); the person wearing goggles stands about 3 m / 10 ft away from the front of the chair and is told to walk over to the chair and sit down on it. Ensure that there is a responsible person at the side of the chair who can stop the goggle wearer from falling onto the floor.

8. 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.

9. 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.

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