Depth perception (vision), dominant eyes

In My Humble Opinion
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There is actually a really good discussion of this hijacking another thread (cite). But it’s an interesting subject.

My impression is that a lot of depth perception is in the mind, and I got that impression mostly from tennis. I used to play a woman on the ladder, then she wasn’t around for years, then she came back. It turned out that she went blind in one eye and couldn’t play tennis for about three years, and then somehow her brain figured the depth perception thing out and she could play again.

I have monovision in my contacts and what happens to me is that, when I look quick, I see two service lines, one sharp and one fuzzy. If I had a couple of seconds I could resolve them into one line (the REAL line) but when someone serves to me I don’t have enough time, therefore I am really, really bad at calling service faults. (So I don’t.)

Same thing happens on the baseline, except most of the time there I do have enough time for my (admittedly slow-moving) brain to resolve the line.

When I was being tested to see which was my dominant eye, it turned out I didn’t have one–both eyes equally bad, and they are pretty bad. So the eye with sharp vision is my right eye. But sometimes I switch…and right after I put my lenses in I do notice, then it goes away and it’s vision as usual.

[Hijack: Is there any way some of the discussion of this from the other thread could get into this one? Or does everybody just have to say the same thing over and over again?]

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Admittedly, I did not post in the other thread (or even read it) but – I am legally blind in my right eye (due to an injury inflicted by my mother when I was in 6th grade) when I have both eyes open. Phew…that was a long sentence. Here’s how it works with me – the vision in my right eye is somewhere around 20/65, but my left eye is around 20/30. Because of the huge difference in the quality, my brain has learned to basically ignore the images from my right eye and only process those from my left, effectively making me blind in one eye with both eyes open.

While I have managed to be able to judge distance/depth, technically I do not have depth perception. It doesn’t affect me at all, it’s been plenty long enough for me to adapt.

As for dominant eye – I am right eye dominant, I was before the injury, so that makes things awkward for me. To shoot a bow and arrow, I actually turn it sideways (so it looks like I think it’s a crossbow) and it works for me. I have learned to adapt without realising that I do, and believe it or not am a dead-on shot with a gun/bow & arrow/whatever.

Just my experiences.