What are common symptoms of spatial disorientation?

There are two main types of spatial disorientation “illusions” that humans are susceptible to in flight:

• somatogravic – experiencing linear acceleration/deceleration as climbing/descending.
• somatogyral – not detecting movement or perceiving movement in a different (mostly opposite) direction to reality.

What are the Somatogyral illusions?

A somatogyral illusion is a false sense of rotation that results from misperceiving the magnitude or direction of actual rotation. It may, for example, result from the situation described in section 6.2. 1. when from a prolonged turn we roll the aircraft back to straight and level flight.

What is vestibular illusion?

Vestibular Illusions (Somatogravic – Utricle and Saccule) Illusions involving the utricle and. the saccule of the vestibular system are most likely under conditions with un- reliable or unavailable external visual references. These illusions include: the. Inversion Illusion, Head-Up Illusion, and Head-Down Illusion.

What is inversion illusion?

An optical illusion that can result in spatial disorientation for the pilot. This is caused by an abrupt change from climb to a straight and level flight, which can excessively stimulate the sensory organs for gravity and linear acceleration, and which gives the illusion of tumbling backward.

What is visual Autokinesis?

The autokinetic effect (also referred to as autokinesis) is a phenomenon of visual perception in which a stationary, small point of light in an otherwise dark or featureless environment appears to move. It presumably occurs because motion perception is always relative to some reference point.

What is false horizon illusion?

A visual illusion that occurs when flying between two cloud layers that are not horizontal when there is no natural horizon. In this case, there is a tendency to use a cloud base or the cloud top as the horizon and fly with a corresponding bank.

What causes Somatogravic illusion?

Somatogravic illusions occur during rapid acceleration and deceleration flight movements. Specifically, this illusion usually happens when there’s limited exterior visibility and a pilot reacts to body senses over actual flight path and instrument readings.

What is autokinesis illusion?

Description. The autokinetic effect (also referred to as autokinesis) is a phenomenon of visual perception in which a stationary, small point of light in an otherwise dark or featureless environment appears to move. It presumably occurs because motion perception is always relative to some reference point.

What causes autokinesis?

According to retinal theories, the retinal motion caused by unmonitored fixational eye movements is responsible for autokinesis.