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Visual %trick' makes you think you're moving when you're flot By Paige Debergo What does Canada's Department of National Defence have in cominon with fantasy entertaininent like Tour of the Universe at Toronto's CN Tower? Vection -- the phenomenon that makes people feel as though they are moving %vhen they see another object pass by in the opposite direction. A common example of vection is when a person i a stationary train car watches another trai pass by and has the sensation that the train tbey are in is the one moving. Professor Ian Howard, of the Institute for Space- and Terrestrial Science at York University i North York, Ontario, has been studying vection, which combines with two other phenomena to create what is called 'induced visual motion'. The Institute and DNDhope this research wil lead to better flight simulators for pilots and astronauts. The saine principles are also used in entertainiment centres like Tour of the Universe, which could be seen as a fantasy flight simulation to the planet Jupiter. "Flight simulators depend on creating the illusion that the aircraft you're sitting i is moving and the scene that you are seeing through the window isn't, when in fact it's the other way around," says Howard. Howard believes that a more realistic simulation cmn be created by better understanding induced vîsual motion. "We are tiying to measure each of the three effects separately because i the past they've ail been lumped together and called induced visual motion. But we've shown that it isn't a single thing; there- are three different things that have the saine effect but three totally different causes." As well as the vection, effect, Howard is studying 'motion contrast', which is the effect of feeling that an object is movig against a background when i fact it is the background movig amd not the object. "Its the effect you get when you watch the moon i among the clouds. It looks as though the moon is moving sometimes. It's not, its the louds as a background ihat are movig," says Howard. The third type of induced visual motion is called 'optokinetic nystagmus', or eye movement illusion. Most people are not even aware of it, but their eyes automaticaIly move with a scene. For instance, when you look out a car wmndow, your eyes wiLl automatically mnd rapidly keep moving back with the lmndscape you are passing. When a person focuses on a stationary object in the midst of a movig scene, it somnetinmes appears that the stationary object is actually moving in the opposite direction to the movement of the scetie. "When you stare at the stationary object, it's as if the brain believes your eyes are moving the other way to the background. You thik your eyes are movig when they're not, mnd if you think your eyes are moving then you think the stationary object is movig too," says Howard. So f ar, the study has debunked mn old belief that vection is caused more by what one sees from the comner of the eye thmn by what one sees from the centre. Howard says this is not true. "If's a question of depth and distance. '(ou cmn get perfectly good illusory self-motion froin a smial display, so long as the display is seen at a distance, as through a window," lie says. "A lot of people were recommending that fliglit simulators should have large displays, but the importmnt thing is that itfs seen through a window." Better understmnding the three separate effects wil hnprove the detail i simulations, Isays Howard. "For flight simulators, you wmnt the vection type effect to work, because that makes you feel you are moving mnd the inside of the aircraft is moving -- thats what you want. But you dont wmnt to have these other illusions out in the scene that you are looking at, because they would misinfomi you about the way things really are." 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