Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Centuries of Sailors Weren’t Wrong: Looking at the Horizon Stabilizes Posture
Association for Psychological Science ^ | January 26, 2011 | Unknown

Posted on 01/27/2011 6:24:17 AM PST by decimon

Everybody who has been aboard a ship has heard the advice: if you feel unsteady, look at the horizon. For a study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers measured how much people sway on land and at sea and found there’s truth in that advice; people aboard a ship are steadier if they fix their eyes on the horizon.

Thomas A. Stoffregen of the University of Minnesota has been studying “body sway” for decades—how much people rock back and forth in different situations, and what this has to do with motion sickness. In just a normal situation, standing still, people move back and forth by about four centimeters every 12 to 15 seconds. Stoffregen and his coauthors, Anthony M. Mayo and Michael G. Wade, wanted to know how this changes when you’re standing on a ship.

To study posture at sea, Stoffregen made contact with the U.S. consortium that runs scientific research ships. “I’m really an oddball for these folks, because they’re studying oceanography, like hydrothermal vents. Here’s this behavioral scientist, calling them up,” he says. He boards a ship when it is travelling between different projects—for example, in this study, he rode on the research vessel Atlantis as it went between two points in the Gulf of California. “It had nothing to do with the fact that I like cruising near the tropics,” he jokes. Since the ships are between scientific expeditions, he can sleep in one of the empty bunks normally reserved for ocean scientists, and crew members volunteer to take part in his study.

(Excerpt) Read more at psychologicalscience.org ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-38 next last

1 posted on 01/27/2011 6:24:21 AM PST by decimon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: magslinger

Sober sailor ping.


2 posted on 01/27/2011 6:25:01 AM PST by decimon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: decimon

>> Everybody who has been aboard a ship has heard the advice: if you feel unsteady, look at the horizon.

It’s pretty hard to look at the horizon when you’re throwing up.


3 posted on 01/27/2011 6:28:39 AM PST by Nervous Tick (Trust in God, but row away from the rocks!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: decimon

Well, that’s good. It’s always nice to see controlled studies confirm what people have known for centuries.


4 posted on 01/27/2011 6:29:17 AM PST by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: decimon
Thomas A. Stoffregen of the University of Minnesota has been studying “body sway” for decades...
Undoubtedly, funded by taxpayers for decades too. What a waste of time and money. Get a feckin life.
5 posted on 01/27/2011 6:30:10 AM PST by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: decimon

>> if you feel unsteady, look at the horizon

What do submarine sailors do?


6 posted on 01/27/2011 6:30:10 AM PST by Nervous Tick (Trust in God, but row away from the rocks!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: decimon
Thomas A. Stoffregen of the University of Minnesota has been studying “body sway” for decades...
Undoubtedly, funded by taxpayers for decades too. What a waste of time and money. Get a feckin' life.
7 posted on 01/27/2011 6:30:24 AM PST by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Nervous Tick
What do submarine sailors do?

Horrible things.

8 posted on 01/27/2011 6:32:57 AM PST by decimon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: decimon

9 posted on 01/27/2011 6:36:58 AM PST by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet - Visualize)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: decimon
So, they had this study to discover that sailors are generally right in their own environment. YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!
Put 'im in the longboat till he's sober,
Put 'im in the longboat till he's sober,
Put 'im in the longboat till he's sober,
Ear-ly in the morning!
(Proud to be from a family of sailors!)
10 posted on 01/27/2011 6:38:42 AM PST by arderkrag (Georgia is God's Country.----------In the same way Rush is balance, I am consensus.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: decimon
The underlying assumption here is that nothing is true until state-run media quotes a "scientist" who says it's true.
11 posted on 01/27/2011 6:40:21 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum ("If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." -- Barry Soetoro, June 11, 2008)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Nervous Tick
>> Everybody who has been aboard a ship has heard the advice: if you feel unsteady, look at the horizon.<<

OK how does this work again?


12 posted on 01/27/2011 6:40:37 AM PST by Oztrich Boy (History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce - Karl Marx)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Nervous Tick
It’s pretty hard to look at the horizon when you’re throwing up.

When I went through survival school with the USAF, they mentioned that if you were getting sea-sick on the emergency raft, to slide over the side and float in the water. Apparently that has a calming effect on you, and the sea-sickness goes away. Granted, it's considerably easier to do this over a life raft than it is a larger boat/ship.

13 posted on 01/27/2011 6:40:44 AM PST by IYAS9YAS (Rose, there's a Messerschmit in the kitchen. Clean it up, will ya?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Nervous Tick

Go down on long black tubes filled with seamen.


14 posted on 01/27/2011 6:43:30 AM PST by stuartcr (Everything happens as God wants it to...otherwise, things would be different)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Nervous Tick

“It’s pretty hard to look at the horizon when you’re throwing up.”

Especially from both ends at the same time ! Lost 10 pounds in 4 hours once .


15 posted on 01/27/2011 6:43:38 AM PST by Renegade
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: decimon

So how much did this ‘decades of study’ cost us?

This has been known for years.

Wonder if he has a study that confirms that drunks sway.......


16 posted on 01/27/2011 6:47:12 AM PST by libertarian27 (Ingsoc: Department of Life, Department of Liberty, Department of Happiness)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: decimon

Here’s a fun game I like to play on a ship:

Get a bunch of drunk people together on the fore deck and tell them to stand with their feet together while looking out across the bow of the ship.

Now if you do this on a sailboat that is 360 feet long in 12 foot seas, it gets real hilarious, real quick.

The only people who make it are snowboarders and surfers.


17 posted on 01/27/2011 6:48:55 AM PST by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously..... You won't live through it anyway.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Nervous Tick

You don’t want to know...


18 posted on 01/27/2011 6:49:40 AM PST by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously..... You won't live through it anyway.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: decimon
This is actually counterintuitive, Stoffregen says.

If thousands of sailors have been doing this for centuries, doesn't this suggest that it is, in one sense, highly intuitive? In an unsteady situation, don't you always orient yourself towards the steadiest thing you can find?

I have a feeling that, for Stoffregen, "intuition" means "the first stupid idea that comes into your head without validation by a many-degreed psych-geek

19 posted on 01/27/2011 6:55:14 AM PST by Dunstan McShane
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Nervous Tick
"What do submarine sailors do?"

Open a window for fresh air ;-)

20 posted on 01/27/2011 6:57:39 AM PST by Dem Guard (Obama's 57 States = The Organization of The Islamic Conference (OIC).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-38 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson