TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2003//
TI  - Antigravity hills are visual illusions
JO  - Psychological science
A1  - Bressan, Paola
A1  - Garlaschelli, Luigi
A1  - Barracano, Monica
SP  - 441
EP  - 449
VL  - 14
IS  - 5
N2  - Antigravity hills, also known as spook hills or magnetic hills, are natural places where cars put into neutral are seen to move uphill on a slightly sloping road, apparently defying the law of gravity. We show that these effects, popularly attributed to gravitational anomalies, are in fact visual illusions. We re-created all the known types of antigravity spots in our laboratory using tabletop models; the number of visible stretches of road, their slant, and the height of the visible horizon were systematically varied in four experiments. We conclude that antigravity-hill effects follow from a misperception of the eye level relative to gravity, caused by the presence of either contextual inclines or a false horizon line.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0956-7976
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/
ID  - ref1
ER  -