Inversion and Delay of the Retinal Image

ABSTRACT The classical problems of space perception with normal and experimental inversion and reversal of the retinal image have been investigated by yoked‐vision techniques wherein prisms were attached to the eye itself and laboratory computing machines were used to yoke visual targets to eye motion. These methods made possible for the first time the experimental dynamic reversal and delaying of the visual images related to ocular movements. a previously unexplored area of study of displaced vision. Findings disclosed that reversal of eyemovement‐retinal feedback had effects altogether different from the wearing of inverting spectacles. Individuals made no adaptation to such reversal of ocular feedback. Eyemovcment‐retinal feedback delay impaired vision in decisive ways and in a manner as great as but distinct from the effects of the ocular reversals of feedback. The results on both eyemovement‐retinal feedback reversal and delay disproved the views that spatial vision with inverted vision can be learned effectively and that time factors in vision are limited to determination of associative learning underlying space perception. The findings indicate that time displacement of feedback and feedback timing factors are just as critical as space displacement factors in governing directional perception. The experiments define a new level of understanding vision and space perception as dynamic feedback‐controlled processes whose characteristics can be specified only in terms of active dynamic control of retinal stimulation.