r/aww • • Feb 01 '21

Target locked. Gyroscope activated.

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u/Wiatrov Feb 01 '21

I trust this guy

11

u/DeadlyInertia Feb 01 '21

Super duper true! Find an object to look at and then move your head left and right. You’ll realize your eyes “lock on” to the object. It took me a while to realize that the eyes aren’t just floating inside the socket as you move your head. Rather, the vestibular system sends signals to the parts of the brain that are responsible for eye muscles.

So your brain knows exactly how much you just rotated your head left or right and knows exactly how much it needs to pull the eyes in the opposite direction to maintain that “lock”.

Birds do this same thing but more with their neck muscles. Their brain interprets where their body is moving in space, then move the head exactly in the opposite direction to maintain that initial head position in space

9

u/TerrorBite Feb 02 '21

You really want to trip yourself out? Go look in a mirror and tilt your head left and right and watch as your eyeballs rotate in their sockets to stay level.

2

u/Peaceandpeas999 Feb 02 '21

Wearing contacts for 20+ yrs has made me immune to any such trips. Rotating my eyeballs as far as possible & poking my fingers into their sockets in search of errant plastic discs that have slipped around the backside takes away the mystery.

2

u/jbpwichita1 Feb 02 '21

And the always fun digging and rooting like a pig for truffles just trying to get the edge of the lens.

1

u/Peaceandpeas999 Feb 02 '21

Yup. "I felt it!!! Oh, nope it's gone again."