an answer I require

[calimac]

In this entry I asked whether the chirping birdies that fly around cartoon characters' heads when they bump their noggins reflected something real or are just a convention of cartoon storytelling.

The answers I got ran the gamut, from yes, "the flash of tiny lights, the dizziness, the eeee! of tinnitus," to so emphatically nothing of the kind that they can't imagine that the convention reflects anything real at all.

That confirms what I've always suspected, that there's a physiological variation among humans here. Because my own response is close to vgqn in the middle: I "see stars" - points of light that drift around and vanish, caused by pressure on the optic nerve - but there's no aural effect. So I wondered where the chirping birds come from, while occasionally hearing remarks in response to the cartoons suggesting that the speaker thought the whole thing imaginary.

This was one of those questions that's drifted in the back of my mind for many years, possibly since childhood. What brought it to mind when I was sitting at the computer ready to write an LJ post was an entry at the Comics Curmudgeon mentioning how odd it is for a comic strip character to talk about her shoes when "we almost never get to see her below the solar plexus," and I was wondering, what exactly is the solar plexus anyway? And when I looked it up, I found references to the phenomenon of "getting the wind knocked out of you," which I'd always thought was just a phrase for the oof of being hit in the stomach but apparently is more than that. And that made me think of my old question of "seeing stars" and the chirping birds.

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

BTW, a nice take on the cartoon trope is in the opening to Who Framed Roger Rabbit (about 4:10 into the movie, and watch the next minute or so).

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

That one is real, and it's also a place to strike if you are trying to defend yourself.

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

Interesting survey, and pretty reasonable results. It's a little surprising that chirping birds have become the convention if as few people 'hear' them as your mini-survey shows. Otoh, why are Xs for eyes a cartoon convention for being dead or at least unconscious?

The times I've had the wind knocked out of me, which mostly happened when I was a kid, involved falling down, never blows to the solar plexus. I've occasionally wondered about that too. Thanks for the link.

[margdean56.livejournal.com]

The one time I had the wind knocked out of me was in my mid-teens sometime when I was going too fast down stairs in my stocking feet, and slipped. I wasn't badly injured otherwise, but I can still vividly remember the sensation of not being able to breathe (or only shallowly). So yes, that particular turn of phrase resonates.

And ever after, I have been cautious about descending stairs.