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Subscribe to RSSSome rugs are just plain ugly; others do nothing to enhance a room. But can the sight of a particular black-and-white rug pattern truly make people feel ill?
A pukey pattern: Looking at this black-and-white rug made people feel green around the gills.
Yes, say researchers Frederick Bonato and Andrea Bubka at Saint Peter's College and their colleagues, who recently observed a "sickening rug phenomenon."
Looking at a picture of a black-and-white patterned rug for five minutes gave people "motion-sickness-like symptoms," reports a study in the journal Perception.
"We were surprised at how quickly people experienced symptoms -- within five minutes," says lead author, Frederick Bonato, PhD, a psychology professor at Saint Peter's College in Jersey City, N.J. "The carpet image was not moving; the people were not moving, but they reported feelings of self-motion and motion sickness," he adds.
Why study carpeting patterns with "nauseogenic properties"? As it turns out, these researchers usually study motion sickness. But a British colleague of theirs had bought a new rug with a repetitive black-and-white square pattern.
Once the rug was put down in his home, both he and his wife felt dizzy, nauseous, and disoriented and they even got headaches just looking at it. Other guests in their home left feeling the same way.
The couple eventually had to get rid of the rug.
Since people's symptoms in response to the new carpeting resembled motion sickness, the researchers decided to run a little experiment.
So they rounded up 22 neurologically healthy college students, and they asked them to look at a photo of the rug or a gray poster while seated. They viewed one image for five minutes, and two days later the students looked at the other image for the same amount of time.
Before and after looking at either image, students completed a motion-sickness questionnaire to evaluate how they felt. They rated their feelings of self-motion much higher when looking at the rug. And they also felt queasier and dizzier compared to the gray poster.
Bonato says they don't know exactly why the rug causes these stomach-turning feelings, but they do know that its high contrast (black and white) and its repeating pattern can lead to sickening symptoms.
Other studies have shown that certain striped or checked patterns can also give the illusion of motion and leave people feeling seasick when seated and on level ground. These sorts of designs may also make folks feel tired or have eye strain.
And some repeating patterns have been known to cause visual distress and even seizures in epileptics, Bonato points out. Some of these patterns look "suspiciously similar" to the sickening rug in this study, the researchers write.
To avoid needing Dramamine the next time you buy a rug, "be careful what you buy," suggests Bonato. "You might have to look at it for a while and it might just make you feel sick."
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Another new insight in to human psychcology .
It's likely a artifact of the organization of the visual cortex.
2 Reasons it makes people ill..
1. The pattern is similar to those psychedelic pattern imagery's that trick the brain into thinking its "waving," causing the motion sickness
2. Convincing a majority of people that it may make you ill, which in turn will truly make you queasy. (vice versa, telling yourself you won't get sick, so you don't..mind over matter)
Doesn't seem like such a phenomenon to me.
It looks like a circuit board or computer chip, maybe hang one in each prison cell, too sick to insight riots, I hear they use pink walls!
Images printed in two contrasting colors, for instance red and deep blue, can also give the very strong impression of three dimensionality as the colors actually vibrate within your visual context. Cut a ring out of blue paper and place it on a red background. If you know how to "de-focus" your eyes the effect is even stronger. Fun with science!!
I looked all around, a lousy candles all i found... You don't know what we can find, why don't you come with me little girl, on a magic carpet ride, You don't know what we can see, why don't you tell your dreams to me, fantasy will set you free, Great article, haven't heard this song in ages!
I get it, let us hang a big one and install on all the floors in US Congress, and just possibly they would all go home and actually listen to the real world out here.
Reminds me of that incident where hackers hacked into the Epilepsy Foundation website and added a bunch of flashing pics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilepsy_Foundation#2008_forum_invasion
Looking at the rug there are obvious imperfections that gives it that hills and valleys like effect.
Some of the white stitching goes one way while others point slightly in the opposite direction. With the black stitching, some of the threads are thicker than others which causes a shading like effect in areas.
Perhaps that is why this rug gives that wave like effect, and thus may be causing the nauseating effect that some folks experience. It sort of set up this illusion of not looking at a surface that is flat, rather the surface may not be as firm or flat as one believes it should be. Thus a room with a large area rug like this could give conflicting evidence that probably causes the nausea/motion sickness effect.
Well that is what I see when asked to look at the rug anyway. In another setting where one is not warned, then walking on or looking down on the rug could actually cause one to pause or tread carefully..... especially in a room where the light is dimmed.
The article had already informed me of a problem caused by the rug.... thus when I looked at it I found myself looking for the possible causes of the 'nausea inducing' effect. Was it the pattern, the colour pairing or was there something else at work? There was nothing about the colour pairing or the pattern so it had to be something else .... the hills and valley shading is noticable on especially the lower right side and there are various waves at various parts all the way to the top of the rug. In the picture the edges are also slightly off ie. not straight. It is as if the rug is not lying flat or straight on the floor or on what ever surface.
If 5 minutes hence I should start to upchuck the tea I am sipping while writing then .... would it be caused by the rug or the taste of the tea? lol
Perhaps it is not affecting me because of my own vision issues and perhaps my love of the old black and white movies anyway.... LOL
Peace....
Hmmmm....
possibly a use for rug-warfare ?
When I look at it, I tend to focus on the black stripes, then the white stripes. Not so much of a waving effect, more like the whites jump out in front, then the blacks, alternating.
Doesn't seem so surprising to me. I suspect the mechanism at work here is that the rug's pattern is essentially tricking the eyes into trying to focus at different distances, similar to what you have to force yourself to do when looking at one of those Magic Eye pictures (except really a more general case). A repetitive pattern can be brought into focus with the eyes in any number of varyingly-crossed positions, mimicking the effect of being different distances away from the eyes.
Rug tricks eyes > visual cortex tricks other parts of brain responsible for doing things like balancing based on feedback from visual cortex.
I tried doing the Magic Eye thing on the rug pic. All it did was give me an urge to pee... Explaining why dogs pee on rugs.
It's an ugly rug anyways :P
Nice fail, just managed to call myself a dog....
Let's put it on the floor of Congress.
LOL
Good One Hank!
Hahahaha! Nice!
What, so they have even more excuse not to get any work done?
I dont know about that rug but Congress makes me nauseous.
Oh, hell no. They'll want to spend 10 billion to fix it.
And aim a strobe light at it!!
Politicians make most people sick anyways!
It's the same feeling I get when I see Obama & Biden standing next to each other :D
Hank...putting that carpet/rug in congress is either overkill...or possibly the "double negative" effect.
I don't see where anyone gets sick!Doesn't bother me!
Great! I'll tell all those who are affected you'll come into their workplace to fill in for them.
Looks, to me, like the grille cloth on a Marshall amplifier. That'll only bother you if you nturn it up to "11."
How big is it? I could put it in my garage!
22 Healthy college students? Was this experiment done after the students had a wild and woolly night of beer drinking? Besides, looking at rug for 5 minutes straight? The person that does that must be really bored.
With the arguable exception of Summer Glau, I think being asked to look at ANYTHING for 5 minutes straight would make me hurk up my cookies.
Yes, I always had a bucket next to me chair, when George was on TV!
Yeah, I'm the same way. Just like you, whenever I see George Miller (D-CA 7th Congressional District) on TV, I get sick.
I thought, from the link, the article would be about toupee's. "Ugly rug truely makes people sick."
So if you carpeted the dining room of a cruise ship with this would it counteract the inner ear motion of the ship or make it seem worse?
If you are the captain, you would get dizzy and run into an island, like Giglio.
The thought of looking at my ex-wife still makes me sick to my stomach.
it's all in your head...
Yet further proof that we need basic art education in schools.
Nobody who understood Op-Art would have chosen this rug in the store, unless maybe they were building a funhouse. We have a citizenry who, to a large extent, literally don't know how to see.
Yeah, and something tells me that the person who designed this pattern is probably looking for a new job.
Imagine the yards and yards of this that will get dumped on the discount carpet stores at unbelieve deal prices!
I think it's an optical illusion that can't be visually reconciled. As your eyes shift from one area to another in an effort to do so, it's feels like you're rocking in a boat and then, agh, Blort!
It's not the rug that's making you sick, it's the visual moire pattern. The headline would have you think the fabric was breeding some contagion or something.
Actually, I did a little research on carpets a few years ago and many of them are made with chemicals that really do make you sick (formaldahyde and other carcinogens). Never stay indoors with a new carpet; it should air out for at least a week before you breathe near it.
(Same thing for new mattresses. Recent federally-mandated anti-flammable regulations have forced manufacturers to add very toxic chemicals to them so they can withstand the burn test.)
AG99,
My first thought was exactly about the chemicals in the rug. I cannot tolerate new carpets, new furniture, etc. I need much more serious airing than just one week. The symptoms are like motion-sickness and worse. However, although this may have contributed to the symptoms of the people with the rug and their guests, the students were watching photos only and no smell should have been involved.
I have also experienced sickening feeling from patterns. There are various optical illusion images (easily found on the web), some of which are with checkered patterns. Sometimes these patterns are really rotating and moving, and sometimes they only appear as moving to some people and not to others. These can easily make me sick. Thus, I am not surprised about the observation reported in the article - I thought it is a common knowledge. However, it would be interesting to know why it is happening.
I doubt it that there is a direct connection between the eyes and the stomach, as some suggested. I assume the explanation is in the connection between vision, the vestibular system (inner ear), and how the brain integrates these. And then, the vestibular perception (feeling in or out of balance) is connected to the nausea that people experience. Of course, this is an arm-waving suggestion; the details must be more interesting.
I also wonder how this may be connected to the nausea some people experience when watching 3D movies. “Avatar” made me somewhat sick – I had to watch sideways from time to time to avoid getting sicker. I have even felt sick watching IMAX – I have to go to the last rows to reduce the feeling.
Oh, I wasn't linking this particular study to chemicals, only amplifying Mike's comment. IMAX I can handle, but not OmniMax. Don't like those motion rides either.
It's like playing World of Warcraft, the sensation of falling from high places within the game causes one's stomach to literally behave as severely as if one were on a roller coaster ride experiencing G-forces, not neccessarily an effect of 3 dimensions in a two dimensional image. As for the carpet all I can see is the lines shifting while focusing on different areas of the image, guess I'm not one to get seasick or airsick, used to when I was a kid though.
Would MSNBC care to explain to its readers-viewers why it would want to POST to Facebook as me or inject content in my name as me......and why does this screwy script for Comments and Facebook login, sometimes ask for a password when other times it bypasses the password and wants a screen-name instead which hangs or freezes the server app. I took screenshots of it all, what's up with this and why does MSNBC want to hijack your persona or identity. I think we should be owed a clear explanation of just what MSNBC is doing with these comments. It used to be that it would automatically parse wether a user was logged into Hotmail or Livemail and there was no reconnection neccessary to that service. Now it appears MSNBC has automated the Login to Facebook without your input and may be storing your password information and transmitting it unsecurely.
Maybe we'll have to see what Anonymous and the LULZ can figure out what MSNBC's database contains on its viewers.
I never have been into video games because I think there are much better ways to spend free time, but I have tried a few to see just what the attraction is and I must say that after about ten or fifteen minutes I was feeling a bit dizzy and disoriented playing one of those games where you are going through something like mazes. I suppose you may get used to it if you do it enough, but it seems like the "learning curve" isn't worth the effort.
We are a highly visual species and our brains are constantly trying to take these visual inputs and put them into some kind of order that reflects our internal rules of orientation. Patterns like this are very difficult to analyze in 3 dimensions and combined with inputs from our other senses, we get contradictory signals. I believe it is when our mind keeps trying to compensate for these signals is when we get into trouble. It is interesting that some people are more susceptible than others. Never have seen a good explanation for that difference.
You know, I've noticed that (about WoW). I'm afraid of heights IRL, and when I find myself in a high place IRL, my legs itch (weird, I know). When I find myself in a high place in the game, my legs itch as well. Long story short, I think it's all in my head!
On another note, this rug didn't bother me in the slightest, but then again...I've never suffered from motion sickness. I would be interested to see my mother's reaction to is, as she is very susceptible to motion sickness!
That's exactly the pattern of the carpet in a few areas of our office. I'll try to stay away from there :-)
Yeah, but the rug really tied the room together.
Didn't make me feel sick, but it did make me feel stupid for looking at it for five minutes.
Some pilots have been experienceing this for decades. We called it simulator sickness. Pilots could fly a regular aircraft completely without issue but when spending an afternoon in the simulators some became sick. We were told it was because the eye sees "motion" but the inner ear detects something different than what you see. The comfusion creates sickness in some pilots. Some people also experience it playing video games that have quick movements.
C'mon, idiots. Your eye works by seeing contrasts and changing edges by microscopic twinges of the eye muscles moving the image across cones. If you look at anything steadily (Your textured ceiling?), you will notice that sections of it seem to disappear or grey out. If you have the self control to hold your view absolutely steady then the whole view can be smeared into a non-detailed fog of color. A repeating pattern will pull your view from edge to edge causing the pattern to seem to flow or wave (Think Honest John's used car lot with salesmen in checkered jackets). Definitely the perfect recipe for sea sickness. Why don't these researchers try to answer their questions by using logic on their observations instead of trying to figure which questions are appropriate and then trying to interpret someones subjective answers.
We cannot say anything is fact until we have proved it. Now we have proved it, so we can say it is fact. That is why seemingly silly studies are done.
Nothing has been proven. Just provided another page in an Optical Illusion Book.
I'm sorry to say this is really old news. I worked in an audiology clinic, and it was a well-known fact that certain rug patterns (or curtains!) could throw off some folks balance, cause nausea, or cause other discomforts. I've been in a number of offices where this information was probably not known because there decor caused me to be off balance, too, and I have few inner ear problems. It can happen to anyone. I would think that rug manufacturers would be more keyed into this. I wonder why they're not?
Where can I get this rug? I have some people I would like to use it on.
All I saw
At the beginning and end of five minutes were some lit pixels on a screen. No nausea, no motion, no nothing but a little eyestrain and boredom. Anyone who claims more are likely wearing aluminum-foil pixie hats as they await the next Roswell convention.
Lune