In this situation, the individual must accommodate the stimuli and expand their perspective to take new information into account. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that awe expands our perspective whenever we encounter that which “ cannot be reduced to pre-existing elements in a given schema”. Recent research into the science of awe shows that one does not need to leave the Earth to experience the overview effect.

The precise nature of the experience varies from one person to the next, but Frank White, the first person to describe the effect, noted that it references the sense of “ wonder and awe, unity with nature, transcendence and universal brotherhood”. Viewed from space, they develop an intense appreciation for the small blue dot with a razor-thin atmosphere that harbors all life and civilizations. The overview effect is a spiritual experience that occurs when astronauts see the Earth from a different perspective. The shift occurs because of the impressive visual spectacle of the Earth and tends to be characterized by a state of awe and increased self-transcendence. The overview effect is a cognitive shift reported by some astronauts when they look back at the Earth from space.

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Overview effect