Understanding how gravity impacts the way in which we make decisions has never been more pressing.
All living organisms on Earth have evolved under a constant gravitational field.
Nevertheless, gravity plays a fundamental role in human behavior and cognition.
The central nervous system does not have specialized sensors for gravity.
Rather, gravity is inferred through the integration of several sensory signals in aprocess termed graviception.
This involves vision, our balance system and information from the joints and muscles.
Sophisticated organs inside the inner ear are particularly important in this process.
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Thus, exploitationinvolves routine behavior, while exploration involves varying choices.
Chris Hadfield has experienced the difficulties with making decisions in space.
NASA
We investigated whether alterations in gravity impact the choice between routine and novel behavior.
We asked participants to come to the lab and produce sequences of numbers as randomly as possible.
Every time they heard a beep sound, they needed to name a number between one and nine.
Importantly, there was no time to think or to count, just name a number.
But how does this change under the influence of gravity?
It is actually a better way to study the effects of gravity than sending someone to space.
This indicates that people are therefore less prone to generating novel behaviors in the absence of gravity.
This may be of importance to the planning of actual space missions.
Astronauts are in an extremely challenging environment in which decisions must be made quickly and efficiently.
The results add to research suggesting that people also sufferchanges in perception and cognitionwhen under conditions mimicking zero-gravity.
The absence of gravity can be profoundly unsettling, and can potentially compromise performance levels in many ways.
