![]() ![]() It’s a positively barfalicious and thrilling epiphany to realize that your vision-even illusory vision-contributes so strongly to your balance in the gravity well of our planet. The walls of the room are painted in wavy curves, but the Earth’s gravity remains exactly the way it should: your brain has a hard time reconciling the two inputs because your visual system is used to walls being straight up-and-down affairs. In the Balance room, your visual and vestibular systems-one sees light and one detects the direction of gravity as downwards-compete for dominance. ![]() The exhibit goes beyond basic sensation and perception to explore the integration of your perceptual systems. Visitors turn a dial to hear a variety of animal sounds normally outside the range of our detection, revealing soundbite calls from a fin whale, forest elephant, house mouse, and an Indiana bat. (right) Humans evolved to detect only certain frequencies, while some animals, including mice and rats, communicate at ranges we can’t perceive without the aid of technology. (left) An infrared viewer allows visitors to hunt like a snake and find prey by the heat they generate. ![]()
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