# Would we see things differently if our eyes were aligned vertically? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 18, 2014, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-we-see-things-differently-if-our-eyes-were-aligned-vertically/681593 "2014-02-18T03:28:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-we-see-things-differently-if-our-eyes-were-aligned-vertically/681593/21 "2014-02-18T17:31:23Z")
And as we’ve learned in other SDMB threads, some of these mirror-image anti-humans walk among us unnoticed. Some of them don’t even know they’re not human. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-we-see-things-differently-if-our-eyes-were-aligned-vertically/681593/22 "2014-02-19T02:19:28Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > If you only took one photo or scan, how would you know what the back looked like? The sculpture only shows the front. It looks like this: [https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-xb1sgWzYkf4/TiHqgru8qkI/AAAAAAAAzBY/w-ok2oMwBy4/s1000/IMG\_1550.JPG](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-xb1sgWzYkf4/TiHqgru8qkI/AAAAAAAAzBY/w-ok2oMwBy4/s1000/IMG_1550.JPG) (a bit like Mount Rushmore) The resolution falls rapidly as you move away from the front surface, so it doesn’t look like much from the side. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-we-see-things-differently-if-our-eyes-were-aligned-vertically/681593/23 "2014-02-19T03:44:11Z")
Mount Rushmore? Is that the right picture? ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-we-see-things-differently-if-our-eyes-were-aligned-vertically/681593/24 "2014-02-19T07:26:52Z")
Well, that was taken from the side. From the front it looks more like [http://www.3dlasergifts.com/uploaded\_files/images/products/s\_d2adaff1f306a2ac30350362c20cddd113.jpg](http://www.3dlasergifts.com/uploaded_files/images/products/s_d2adaff1f306a2ac30350362c20cddd113.jpg) (I’m not putting my face here). It’s 3D, but only shows the front surface. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-we-see-things-differently-if-our-eyes-were-aligned-vertically/681593/25 "2014-02-19T17:13:08Z")
OK, I get it now. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-we-see-things-differently-if-our-eyes-were-aligned-vertically/681593/26 "2014-02-19T18:30:11Z")
I imagine that (with our heads in normal orientation) we’re slightly better at depth perception for vertical bars than for horizontal ones, since one avenue of depth perception is the percieved shift against the background for an object viewed by our left vs. right eyes – if a horizontal object was featureless, smooth, extended past our vision on each side and perfectly aligned with our eye’s left-right axis, we’d have no depth perception of it from that channel. But this would be a very minor effect, I think, since that’s not the only avenue of depth perception, and of course few real world objects would be horizontal exactly in line with our eyes (even if one was, people often cock their head to look at interesting things). ---
**Author:** ![Gymnopithys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-we-see-things-differently-if-our-eyes-were-aligned-vertically/681593/27 "2014-02-19T20:06:52Z")
Imagine your nares being also aligned vertically.😃 ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-we-see-things-differently-if-our-eyes-were-aligned-vertically/681593/28 "2014-02-19T20:58:55Z")
Our foreheads would have to be shaped differently. I would say **njtt** is correct in thought based on our bodies having bilateral symmetry. But even more importantly, our brains are bilateral. With each hemisphere of the brain holding a visual cortex to the opposite eye, a vertical alignment would become arbitrary to this aspect of our physiology: Which eye (being top and bottom) gets assigned to which half of the brain? ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-we-see-things-differently-if-our-eyes-were-aligned-vertically/681593/29 "2014-02-20T19:22:00Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > This brings to mind the age old question of why, when you look in a mirror, your right and left hands are reversed, but your head and feet are not. If your eyes were vertically positioned, would your mirror reflection be upside down? As several others already stated, your mirror-image isn’t reversed, it’s a direct reflection. I just want to add that there’s a psychological factor, too. You think that left and right are reversed because you’re imagining yourself rotated 180 degrees around a vertical axis to face yourself. If you imagine yourself rotated around a horizontal axis instead, you would think that your image’s top and bottom were reversed but left and right were the same. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-we-see-things-differently-if-our-eyes-were-aligned-vertically/681593.md?page=1)