Take a person to an open field, blindfold them, and tell them to walk straight across the field. You may think, "Sure, no problem. I could do that easily." Unfortunately, you would be wrong. Over and over again, people recreate this basic experiment and the results end up the same for absolute no known reason. Instead of walking in a straight line, you will actually walk in a circle. Without the aid of fixed points of reference, the human body tends to walk in circles. Researchers find the same situation when walking, swimming or even when driving a car (I hope it was a very open field!).
No explanation exists for this circular phenomenon. Some blame our disproportionate bodies, dominant handedness, or dominant hemispheres-ness. It seems that our possible explanations also keep us running in circles.
I would like to try the experiment. Could be fun!
Enjoy this video on the strange phenomenon from NPR:
No comments:
Post a Comment