Teaching Cross-Eyed People to See in 3-D

Susan R. Barry, Ph. D

I have been cross-eyed (strabismic) and stereoblind since early infancy. Since the first months of life, I looked at things with one eye and turned in the other. Three childhood surgeries made my eyes look straighter but did not change the way I used them. I continued to look with one and turn away the other. My crossed eyes may have been less noticeable after the operations, but I still suppressed the input from the turned eye and saw an abnormally flat, less detailed, and less vibrant view of the world. I did not see in 3D; I was stereoblind.

As I grew older, my vision became more troublesome. So at age 48, I consulted a developmental optometrist. I went to see her not to gain stereovision; that possibility was not even on my radar. Instead, I spoke to her about my unstable gaze. My view of distant objects was jittery which made driving difficult and frightening. I wanted to gain more competence and confidence for chauffeuring my children around town.

Over the next year, my developmental optometrist, Dr. Theresa Ruggiero, taught me something that most infants learn within the first months of life - how to aim both eyes at the same place in space at the same time. This required a great deal of practice using a variety of elegantly-designed vision therapy tools. To my astonishment, I began to see in 3D. Ordinary things looked extraordinary. Sink faucets reached out toward me, hanging light fixtures seemed to float in mid-air, and I could see how the outer branches of trees captured whole volumes of space through which the inner branches penetrated. Borders and edges appeared crisper; objects seemed more solid, vibrant, and real. I was overwhelmed by my first stereo view of a snowfall in which I could see the palpable pockets of space between each snowflake.
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You See Me As What Now?

Across the vast array of friends and acquaintances hold many different perceptions of you. One of your friends could say your a warm hearted individual and other could say you're vindictive. The perception of you can change day to day if you have a combination of wardrobe. A classification of their perception of you can be locked in time if you havent seen them in a while. You could wear and act in a way of a jock (wearing sports jerseys, gym shorts, sweatpants) in high school. Then go off to college and start wearing more profession clothing (dress shirts, slacks, dressier shoes, suits).  If that person that saw you in Highschool in the "jock" style moved away then reconnected with you when they moved back will still hold that perception of a "jock" until they see your new style, while others around you hold the perception of you as a level-headed professional. The littlest change in your day to day wardrobe can change others perceptions of you.

Here is an article from Psychology Today going into more detail about perception and how it change.

DO YOU HAVE A PERCEPTION PROBLEM?

Have you ever been surprised by the way someone else sees you?

I was once told by a former co-worker that I intimidated her. At four-feet-eleven-inches tall, the thought of me intimidating someone else was laughable to me. But that was her perception. And, in the end, it's our own perceptions that form our reality.

I was recently told by someone else to "be the confident person I know you are" before I had to head into a difficult conversation. That also gave me pause -- did I seem unconfident? Did I appear uncomfortable in my own skin?

It can be quite jarring when your vision of yourself is out of sync with the way you're seen by others. Whether it's a physical quality or an aspect of your personality, that feeling that you're not being truly seen is uncomfortable. But the thing about perception is that it's incredibly subjective - to perceive, literally, means to "know or identify by means of the senses." Quite simply, we feel what we feel, sometimes in spite of what our eyes alone tell us.

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