Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey Into Seeing in Three Dimensi

The profound impact of a book on my life became evident when I read it in 2015, during a period of intense doubt. After reading it, I gifted the same book to someone who was facing similar issues. Eight years later, I ordered the book again, and I'm filled with gratitude to Susan Barry for how it has completely helped me gain confidence.🍀

detailed and helpful.

I guess maybe I am just very, very lucky, but doing the brock string exercise for 10 minutes has made a massive difference to my eyesight. I am 38 years old and have basically only looked through 1 eye or the other alternately all my life. To be honest, most of the time it has not been a problem, but recently I started have serious issues because my eyes started swapping continuously (this used to only happen when tired) which would give me eye strain, headaches and even motion sickness! I went to the opticians and as usual nothing. In desperation I started googling, reading forums etc. and finally came across this book and the associated youtube videos. I decided to have a go with the brock string one night (just a piece of string, I didn't have the beads the first time) and the very next day I noticed the difference. I am definitely seeing in 3D, have far less eye strain, no headaches or motion sickness and my reading has massively improved. I am sure without all the articles and talks that susan barry has done over the years I would not have found what I was looking for on the internet. Why this has not been mentioned to me in over 30 years of going to opticians (including specialists in the hospital) in the UK is frankly unbelievable, surely it is always going to be worth a try?The book itself is a good read, even if you haven't had similar issues, but if you have then it's a must read.

I ordered this new book just after meeting the inspirational Dr. Barry at this year's meeting of the Vision Sciences Society. The book arrived this last Friday and I spent the day reading it. I confess to be blown away by her story, as well as the scientific and clinical implications of her work. Add me to the list of people who loved the book!Sue Barry's astonishing development of stereopsis at age 48 changed - profoundly - the way that many scientists (me included) view visual development and plasticity. Somehow we had tuned out, en masse, one hundred years of successes using vision therapy (including the extensive the work of Frederick Brock). The stuff of vision therapy was ignored, relegated to the fringes of sensible vision care. Instead, several generations of us took the Nobel Prize winning research of Hubel and Wiesel as gospel truth, going beyond the data by wrongly concluding (perhaps unlike the Nobel laureates) that stereopsis could only develop during a critical period during infancy. It took Barry, a well-established neuroscientist and keen observer, to bring us to our senses.And yet now, having read her new book, I see that the story is much deeper and profound than I thought. First off, she's a very entertaining storyteller in her own right. The human drama escalated as she went through frightening surgeries as a child (including an encounter with a deceptive anesthesiologist); as she experienced shock and disappointment at being exposed as stereoblind; as she had her vision problems dismissed by one ophthalmologist as a psychiatric disorder; as she experienced steropsis bursting out at her for the first time; as she gained steam and knowledge, recognizing the scientific, clinical, and human implications of her story; as she brought celebrity neuroscientists on board. And so it is a story of empowerment for Barry the patient, Barry the scientist, Barry the teacher, and Barry the instiller of hope.I believe that Susan Barry has demonstrated for many of us that stereopsis is, indeed, important. I, for instance, was trained to believe that binocular vision and any advantage it afforded us wasn't that big a deal. Sure, I loved stereo viewers and all that... But as an undergrad at Berkeley in the early `80s, I recall a visit by Bela Julesz, of cyclopean vision fame. Two of my academic heroes, Russ and Karen De Valois rose to challenge Julesz, eventually (as I recall) suggesting that two eyes really aren't that much better than one. As I read Barry's book, as well as her descriptions of the consequences of her visual deficit, I realized that my early academic training (as a I had encoded it) was quite wrong. The book makes it clear that lack of stereopsis, and having two eyes that don't fuse images properly, has profound consequences for people like Barry (e.g., her driving, her energy level, and her sense of efficacy). Moreover, it is fair to say that Barry is an extraordinary observer of stereoscopic experience, and that she uses her newfound, developing perceptual ability to achieve scientific and clinical insights that are elusive to us who grew up with normal stereopsis.One of the epiphanies for me was when I read and grasped the following paragraph: "Just as I could not imagine a world in stereo depth, an individual with normal normal stereopsis cannot experience the worldview of a person who has always lacked steropsis. This may be surprising because you can eliminate clues from stereopsis simply by closing one eye. What's more, many people do not notice a great difference when viewing the world with one eye or two. When a normal binocular viewer closes one eye, however, he or she still uses a lifetime of past visual experiences to re-create the missing stereo information."People interested in stereopsis will find excellent coverage of the basic issues and the key scientific figures past and present (e.g., Wheatstone, Hering, Helmholtz, Eileen Birch, Shin Shimojo, Denis Levi, Uri Polat, Chris Tyler). It is nice, if not surprising, to learn that the already positive, cool Oliver Sacks played a positive, cool role in Susan Barry's story.If you have strabismus or some other disorder of binocular vision, you will find what you need here. You will find out how to find an appropriate vision therapist. You will find extensive, understandable information about the theory and science of binocular vision. More importantly, you will learn in marvelous detail about the experiences and practices that can in some instances lead to acquiring stereopsis late in life. My guess is that vision therapy patients will use this book as a guide for years to come.One last thing: I recommend listening to two NPR interviews (2006, 2009) featuring Sue Barry, as well as other key scientific figures in the story, including Sacks, Hubel, Levi, and, briefly, the heroic Theresa Ruggiero. The NPR programs are available online and go quite well with the book.Two thumbs up! (one with uncrossed disparity; one with crossed disparity).

Susan Barry has early childhood strabismus, like me, and after a few operations, her eyes were straight. However, the brain normally learns stereopsis ("3D") at 1-2 years, so even after having surgery, people with early childhood strabismus will still not be able to use their eyes in a 3D way.However, Susan Barry had the opportunity to train her eyesight and learn to see in 3D. To me, the highly significant thing about this book is that it explains what a difference 3D makes and why. For example, people who have always had 3D will also be able to see the effects in 2D-films better, as the so-called "motion parallaxis" uses the same neurons as binocular vision does - so people with healthy eyesight will even have a better 3D-view when they turn blind on one eye!I have strabismus ("being cross-eyed") since I am a few months old and therefore have not developed stereopsis. I am aware of this since about a decade and have always felt there is something wrong, yet doctors and my parents dismissed it as a minor vision flaw. Susan Barry is literally the first human being in my life which has enlightenend me to why my vision is different and how it is different, and why it is not such a small thing as people always claimed it was.I honestly don't know how normal-sighted people would find this book, because to me, having an explanation to this all-encompassing "different" view of the world is incredibly significant. Even if I never learn to see 3D, I now know what's different and why, and this is a huge comfort and explains a lot to me.I am not, however, entirely sure about her opinion on 3D training. I entirely believe her it has been an incredible and life-changing experience for her. However, a year ago, I asked Prof. Kaufmann, who was my surgeon and is one of the world's most renowned ophtalmologists, told me that 3D-training was quite wide-spread in the 50s and 60s, and it had lead to quite a high incidence of double vision, which was the reason why, in most cases of strabismus, it is not recommended or done. I am, obviously, not an expert on the subject, though.Personally, I have made the experience that 2 optometrists I have seen were quite dubious. They recommended an expensive training for me, even if I have hyperopia, esotropia and quite a cyclotropia, which makes 3D pretty much impossible and increases the danger of double vision dramatically. I would only recommend 3D training if there is nearly no or no strabismus left at all.