Title

Space Adaptation Syndrome And Perceptual Training

Abstract

A vexing problem within the medical life sciences is the “space adaptation syndrome” reported to afflict about one-half of all shuttle astronauts and mission specialists (Homick, Reschke, and Vanderploeg, 1984; Ishii, 1993; Nguyen, 1996; Reschke et al., 1998; Thornton, Pool, Moore, and Vanderploeg, 1987). The symptoms resemble those found with other forms of motion sickness (Money, Watt, and Oman, 1984), particularly those that are reported in visual rearrangement studies (Kottenhoff, 1957; Welch, 1978, 2000a), and in ground-based flight simulators (Kennedy, Lilienthal, Dutton, Ricard, and Frank, 1984). Cue conflict or neural mismatch (Reason, 1970) theory suggests that the constellation of symptoms is triggered by decorrelation between sensory stimuli (Kennedy, Berbaum,. and Frank, 1984; Oman, 1991; Parker, Reschke, Arrott, Homick, and Lichtenberg, 1985). In other words, the disparity between and within vision, vestibular, and somatic messages is the cause (Benson, 1978; Guedry, 1965). Thus, as one initially moves about in the weightless environment, the sensory channels provide incompatible information about spatial orientation and bodily movement, and this sensory conflict leads to nausea and motion sickness (Ishii, 1993). Preadapting astronauts to the visual/vestibular conflicts before embarkation to immunize them against space adaptation syndrome is the subject of this proposal. An old theory (von Holst, 1968) called reafference may have relevance for new findings (Welch, 2000a, 2000b).

Publication Date

1-1-2008

Publication Title

Human Factors in Simulation and Training

Number of Pages

239-258

Document Type

Article; Book Chapter

Personal Identifier

scopus

Socpus ID

85057409317 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85057409317

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