Car Wash- Perpetual motion

Have you ever sat in your car as you’re washing your car in a car wash and grab your steering wheel because you thought the car was moving? Me too, I was washing my car in a drive in car wash, the car was set to a parked position yet the rollers provided the feeling of the car moving forward or backwards thus giving the appearance of the car moving.

When you park in the car wash, you know the car is not going to move yet the movement of the rollers deceives the eyes which in turn deceives the mind that the car is moving. Over time, we have been conditioned and have been an automated process that cars move. Also the building has been non-mobile and foundationally nonmoving. The association of the car being the mobile vehicle and not the building conditioned since driving provides reinforcement of the notion that the car is moving.

The condition provides locomotion to the object, car, at rest for the same reason we associate the perception of depth of or location of building or object. This perception alters our perception based on our learned conditioning of what we should expect. We perceive the state of reality from what we know to be real within our boundaries. Hence, a room height is perceived by the normal room height we walk in daily. Yet, if we alter the ceiling height and change the visual perception of the height, it would seem that someone walking the halls of the altered ceiling height is growing.

Thus, based on the normality or expectations of what we know as a norm can be skewed by our mind’s perception of changes not registered by either our eyes or hands. This in the end may throw us off until we see the mechanism or understanding of the cause of the perception modifications. So enter the car wash and enjoy the perception of motion without pressing down on the breaks!

One thought on “Car Wash- Perpetual motion

  1. aal5243

    Perception is defined as the conscious experience that results from stimulation of the senses according to (Goldstein, 2011). It can also be defined as our recognition and interpretation of sensory information. I like the example you brought up about being in a car wash, I often have experienced that same feeling as well. I went and washed my truck over the weekend and did the same thing, forgetting that it was in neutral and really was not moving so to say. My mind thought it was in drive, but it really was not. When I think about perception I often about the interpretation of things. You and I both could look at the same clouds in the sky and you would probably see something completely different than I would. We often see that in psychology tests, where three people can be shown a set of pictures and they all see something completely different than each other. I think that when it comes to perception we have to always use all our senses and gather all the information that we can that is around us. I have a newborn daughter that is getting used to using her perception, touch and taste. She loves to touch everything and also taste it so that she can gather information about it. Her perception is not as keen as mine obviously, but it is great to see her learning the world and her environment through these trials.

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