Why is the view the same when laying down and being upright?

Question

Why isn't when you are laying down the view is not sideways? How come it is upright?

Answer 1

Well, since your eyes naturally transmit images to the brain upside-down where they must then be righted it makes sense that the brain would continue to riht an image to the point that it was accessible and familiar.

Technically, however, what you are seeing is sideways. You just recognize it more easily side-ways than you do up-side-down. It all has to do with the angle at which your two eyes see an object, though, and the speed at which the view changes. The faster the change, the more foreign an object will appear.

Answer 2

This is a great question!! I've noticed the same thing! I think it has something to do with your brain subconsciously over compensating for the degree of the image, because it isn't your eyes that see, they just pick up light. Your brain is what makes the pieces of light make sense.

Answer 3

Think about what you just asked honey...when you are lying down...aren't you in the same position as when you are standing up?  Its not like your eyeballs stay stuck in your head in the same position.

Answer 4

It's called orientation constancy. We have the perceptual tendancy to maintain orientation constancy despite any changes made to the retinal images.

It's the same we when we see someone walking into the distance, they appear to get smaller but we know they are the same size, and when you see a door at different angles, you know its the same shape.

Answer 5

If you're lying on your stomach, your eyes are still in the same orientation.

If you're lying on your side, your eyes are indeed in a 90 degree change of orientation .... try reading something held turned 90 degrees clockwise.  I guarantee you'll notice that it's "sideways".  However, your brain is clever and does adapt somewhat to the change in view; it just has to work harder to translate the rotated images.  There have been lots of studies on perception -- for example, if you wore glasses that made everything look twice as far from you as it really is, you would take a while to adjust, then you could navigate like normal once your brain adapted.  (Though of course then you would have the re-adaptation stage when you took the glasses OFF again!)