Abstract
Maintaining orientation in an environment with non-Earth gravity (1 g) is critical for an astronaut's operational performance. Such environments present a number of complexities for balance and motion. For example, when an astronaut tilts due to ascending or descending an inclined plane on the moon, the gravity vector will be tilted correctly, but the magnitude will be different from on earth. If this results in a mis-perceived tilt, then that may lead to postural and perceptual errors, such as mis-perceiving the orientation of oneself or the ground plane and corresponding errors in task judgment.
Highlights
Rotation on a centrifuge offers a unique opportunity to vary the direction of the gravity vector without physical tilt, that is, without coactivation of the semicircular canals during the simulated tilt
Under normal gravity conditions, sustained linear acceleration in the transverse plane can create an illusion of tilt - the somatogravic illusion - in which the entire gravito-inertial force (GIF) is interpreted as corresponding to gravity
The somatogravic illusion was measured during prolonged backwards centripetal acceleration created by centrifugation simulating different pitched-forward tilts
Summary
Rotation on a centrifuge offers a unique opportunity to vary the direction of the gravity vector without physical tilt, that is, without coactivation of the semicircular canals during the simulated tilt. The tilt angle simulated is the tilt of the simple vector sum of gravity and the acceleration added by the centrifuge. Perceiving acceleration as tilt is the well-known somatogravic effect [Mach1875, Clark1951].
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