The Floating Head Phenomenon

This weird disconnect can happen in real life, too. During the pandemic, I needed to get physical therapy. For almost the entirety of that, we all needed to be masked so I never saw my PT's complete face.

The masking requirement was lifted a couple of weeks before my PT completed, and I saw her full face for the first time. I found it incredibly disconcerting because my mind had imagined what her full face looked like (without me being aware), and her actual appearance was very different from what I imagined.

I've worked with a director for probably six or so years now, entirely on Zoom. By all rights she has perfectly standard proportions. We'd seen her walk around showing off her new apartment.

We had an all hands in-person about a year ago and she was literally as though you took a perfectly average person and scaled them down proportionally with the resize tool. I would estimate she is 4 foot 10 or so.

It was such a strange feeling. It really was genuinely almost disturbing to have the... scale... of someone you thought you knew very well called into question. Honestly I think the fight-or-flight part of my brain thought "that's an imposter!" and felt literally threatened. The feeling made zero sense.

I'd say what we can do now with Zoom et. al. is bloody amazing from the 90s perspective. I dreamed of just a video phone. They started making them late 90s but both ends needed a special telephone line.

To the best of my knowledge, scientists haven’t studied the disorienting feeling that occurs when digital expectations meet physical realities, but if / when they do, I think they should call it the Floating Head Phenomenon.

This happened to me. I got a new job just before the pandemic, so I did not meet many co-workers until well after. Everyone was taller or shorter, or even not recognizable when in person. Very strange.