Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpda!hpcupt1!hpisod2!decot
From: decot@hpisod2.HP.COM (Dave Decot)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: A Sneeze (AH-choo!) Question
Message-ID: <14830003@hpisod2.HP.COM>
Date: 4 Apr 88 23:44:53 GMT
References: <7756@alice.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 20

A scenario possibly installing the reflex of sneezing in reaction to sudden
exposure to bright light:

    Upon birth, some liquid or other matter was present somewhere within
    the one's upper respiratory tract.  At the same time, one's eyes
    are suddenly exposed very bright lights in the delivery room, and this
    discomfort is further complicated by a requirement to begin breathing
    air.  The nervous control needed for sneezing could be insufficiently
    developed for one to sneeze at this occasion.  Nevertheless, sneezing
    would be the most appropriate reaction to the circumstances, if it
    could have been accomplished.  Of course, one does not know that at
    the time, at any level.

    After experiencing one's first sneeze much later in life, subsequent
    sudden exposures to bright light resembling the first experience
    with breathing could subconsciously trigger sneezing as a survival
    action.

Dave Decot
hpda!decot