Upright Thinking

Most of us take for granted that the ceiling is directly above us,
that thefloor is flat below, and that walls are solidly upright. But
fighter pilots can't take perspective for granted, so researchers during
World War built tilting chairs. The tilting room pictured here was
created by Herman Witkin, Ph.D., in 1939, to increase our understanding
of how people orient themselves.

Those who used visual cues (what the room looked like) to determine
their orientation were called "field-dependent," and those who used
postural cues (which way they felt upright) were called "field
independent."

At first, field dependent learners were considered less cognitively
proficient by other researchers. But after years of cognitive
experiments, Witkin came to. believe that one's level of field dependency
is related to a variety of early cultural and social experiences.

What started as a project to understand how pilots react to a
topsy-turvy world soon turned into years of research on the complex, ways
in which people learn about the world around them.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Most of us take for granted that the
ceiling is directly above us, that the floor is flat below, and that
walls are solidly upright. But fighter pilots can't take perspective for
granted, so researchers during World War built tilting chairs.