[Martin Taylor 951205 14:00]
Bill Powers (951205.1015 MST)
Martin Taylor (951205 11:40) --
Initially, when a person puts on prism spectacles, hand movements
are misdirected and may, as you point out, not be correctible in
the time of one attempted pick-up of an object. But after quite a
short time, things start to look more or less normal again, and
one's movements regain their external-world accuracy, more or less.What do you mean by saying that things start to look more or less normal
again? As soon as the prism glasses are put on, you see a perfectly
normal world. There is no indication that it has been displaced until
you reach out for something.
I take it this means you've never tried it. I'd suggest you get a prism
and try it. There's no way you'd mistake the prism world for a normal
world.
Anyway, the same comment applies to left-right or up-down inverting
spectacles, at least when worn by humans.
The only interesting point about the chicks is that they seem unable to
realign the kinesthetic and visual spatial maps.
Yes, that IS the point both my messages were addressing.
Chicks don't seem to learn, which suggests that the related control
system hierarchy is not easily reorganized, as compared to ours.That's a pretty wild generalization from the limited evidence.
If you remember, my post was a question. I asked whether it was still
believed to be true, and if so, whether it applied to chicks, all of that
species, other birds, or what?
The fact
that chickens (adult) can be operantly conditioned is a pretty good
indication that grown birds can learn.
Hey--just a minute. How do you reconcile this statement with the one
quoted above:
The only interesting point about the chicks is that they seem unable to
realign the kinesthetic and visual spatial maps.
Either they can ore they can't. You can't have it both ways in the same
message.
let's not draw sweeping conclusions from practically nonexistent data.
No, and let's not turn a question asking about the present state of the
data into "sweeping conclusions from practically nonexistent data" either.
Pots and kettles aren't usually black any more, but language persists.
Martin