and people with deep-set eyes have poorer peripheral? I guess that one’s more obvious, but what I mean by bulgey eyes is where the eyeball seems to protrude some from the socket more than usual.
You wouldn’t think so – you don’t see with the bulk of your eyes, only with the part around the clear cornea. So unless that’s blocked by the cionstruction of your head, I’d think that having Bug Eyes wouldn’t help you at all.
I’ve heard that some people with big nasal ridges can’t see over them, while people with “cutaway” ridges above the nose can see farther in the direction of the eye than ordinary folks. In that case, having eyes that bulge out might help you see around your nose, but I assume that you can already see in that direction with the peripheral vision of your other eye.
John McPhee, in A Sense of Where You Are, a biography of Bill Bradley’s days playing basketball at Princeton, reports that Bradley as a child enhanced his peripheral vision through practice. McPhee also reported that an eye doctor had measured Bradley’s vision and that he did indeed have a much wider than average field of vision.
So it seems that one improve peripheral vision through practice, perhaps to a degree that would overcome any but the grossest physiological factors.
As 3waygeek is saying, peripheral vision is definately more psychological than physical. We have a lot of ability that is usually untapped. Something that brings it out in many people in marijuana. If you get high enough and relax, you can literally see 180 degrees. It’s obviously blurry on this sides (tho blurry is the wrong word) yet it also feels strangely natural. Also, it’s warped (“fish-eye”) like any wide-angle lens.
I’d like a cite on that, if you don’t mind. Preliminary googling yielded nada.
Hmm, you’re right. Well, that’s definately what it did for me, and my friends would sort of agreed when I mentioned it. Maybe you have to be trying to get the effect.
Before I’d tried smoking, I saw a tv show or maybe a book illustration about what our field of view looks like, and there was an in-focus spot in the very center (next to the empty deadspot that no one notices) surrounded by these blurry, yet still actual, images. I thought to myself, “Hmm, I’ve never seen that. It must be like some metaphor for our ability to notice stuff in the periphery, but never really consciously see it.”
Like I said, later with weed and concentration, I was able to see it. Tetrahydrocannabinol is supposed to work neurologically by “disabling filters.” And this can mean something vague, like giving you freer thoughts and creativity, but I think it can also be something concrete, like letting you see images that normally get filtered out.
I would agree. I trained myself at an early age to use my peripheral vision more, to notice things more (being a severely abused child, it was a survival skill). Later in life, it was similarly useful, living in a bad neighborhood and later, working in Security.
So even though I have relatively deep set eyes, I have much better working peripheral vision than about anyone I know. Because my mind is trained to NOTICE and to USE IT. Unlike some people I’ve known who barely notice things that are not directly in front of them and/or waving large colorful banners.