Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ncar!gatech!hubcap!ncrcae!ncr-sd!crash!gryphon!edk
From: edk@gryphon.CTS.COM (Ed Kaulakis)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: A Sneeze (AH-choo!) Question
Message-ID: <3196@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: 7 Apr 88 04:35:38 GMT
References: <7756@alice.UUCP> <14830003@hpisod2.HP.COM>
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, Ca.
Lines: 41
Summary: Yes but is it science...

In article <14830003@hpisod2.HP.COM>, decot@hpisod2.HP.COM (Dave Decot) writes:
> 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

	I'm posting this because I see a lot of hypotheses like the one
above masquerading as explanations, to the general clouding of 
understanding. Not a flame.

	It looks like an imprinting paradigm collided in a fog of 
subjunctives with a gestaltish closure paradigm, bouncing off an 
observation, and generating a hypothesis that looks to me like it 
would be *real hard* to test. 

	NOTHING HAS BEEN EXPLAINED. Yet. IF the hypothesis checks
out in a series of experiments, AND IF other explanations are ruled
out, THEN it's an explanation. 

	I could dribble on for hours, but you either already had the
idea, in which case, apologies for wasting your time, have got it,
or need better explanations than I can provide. (Did you stop and
evaluate my claim that there's an "it" to get?)

Cheers,
	Ed