Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey Into Seeing in Three Dimensions by Susan R. Barry - 9780465009138 - Compare Prices on New & Used Textbooks, Cheap Textbooks

When neuroscientist Susan Barry was fifty years old, she took an unforgettable trip to Manhattan. As she emerged from the dim light of the subway into the sunshine, she saw a view of the city that she had witnessed many times in the past but now saw in an astonishingly new way. Skyscrapers on street corners appeared to loom out toward her like the bows of giant ships. Tree branches projected upward and outward, enclosing and commanding palpable volumes of space. Leaves created intricate mosaics in 3D. With each glance, she experienced the deliriously novel sense of immersion in a three dimensional world.

Barry had been cross-eyed and stereoblind since early infancy. After half a century of perceiving her surroundings as flat and compressed, on that day she was seeing Manhattan in stereo depth for first time in her life. As a neuroscientist, she understood just how extraordinary this transformation was, not only for herself but for the scientific understanding of the human brain. Scientists have long believed that the brain is malleable only during a “critical period” in early childhood. According to this theory, Barry’s brain had organized itself when she was a baby to avoid double vision – and there was no way to rewire it as an adult. But Barry found an optometrist who prescribed a little-known program of vision therapy; after intensive training, Barry was ultimately able to accomplish what other scientists and even she herself had once considered impossible.

A revelatory account of the brain’s capacity for change, Fixing My Gaze describes Barry’s remarkable journey and celebrates the joyous pleasure of our senses.

		Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey Into Seeing in Three Dimensions by Susan R. Barry, Oliver Sacks (Foreword) ISBN-10: 9780465009138 ISBN-10: 0-465-00913-1 ISBN-13: 9780465009138 ISBN-13: 978-0-465-00913-8 Hardcover 2009-05-26 Basic Books Find Lowest Price
Editorials

Product Description When neuroscientist Susan Barry was fifty years old, she took an unforgettable trip to Manhattan. As she emerged from the dim light of the subway into the sunshine, she saw a view of the city that she had witnessed many times in the past but now saw in an astonishingly new way. Skyscrapers on street corners appeared to loom out toward her like the bows of giant ships. Tree branches projected upward and outward, enclosing and commanding palpable volumes of space. Leaves created intricate mosaics in 3D. With each glance, she experienced the deliriously novel sense of immersion in a three dimensional world. Barry had been cross-eyed and stereoblind since early infancy. After half a century of perceiving her surroundings as flat and compressed, on that day she was seeing Manhattan in stereo depth for first time in her life. As a neuroscientist, she understood just how extraordinary this transformation was, not only for herself but for the scientific understanding of the human brain. Scientists have long believed that the brain is malleable only during a “critical period” in early childhood. According to this theory, Barry’s brain had organized itself when she was a baby to avoid double vision – and there was no way to rewire it as an adult. But Barry found an optometrist who prescribed a little-known program of vision therapy; after intensive training, Barry was ultimately able to accomplish what other scientists and even she herself had once considered impossible. A revelatory account of the brain’s capacity for change, Fixing My Gaze describes Barry’s remarkable journey and celebrates the joyous pleasure of our senses.
Reviews

Eyes This book was an inspiration in that I have suffered with the same exact eye problems for 40 years. I now plan to find an eye doctor that can use vision therapy along with the right corrective surgery to correct my vision. I look forward to having it done since I have been viewing the world with monocular vision since 5.
The Brock String If you see double or if you have(had) an eye(s) turn, you should try the Brock string. Barry writes, "When I learned to use the "Brock string," I received the feedback that I needed to know where my eyes were pointing and then to redirect them so that they were aiming simultaneously at the same point in space." (p. 90) My guess is that Barry believes this was the single most important exercise of her visual therapy. The Brock string is a simple setup. Tie a string to a knob, hold the other end to the bridge of your nose. If you put a bead or clip about a foot or so from your nose, you'll see an X as you look down the string to where the bead resides. How you see the X, what you can do with it, and whether you can easily move the juncture point of the X along the string...all of that is the stuff of some visual training which worked for Barry. I have a childhood history of visual therapy (I'm now 66). I did not use the Brock string, because I guess my therapists didn't know about it. But, I did many, many other exercises. I remember many of them from Barry's descriptions. There is, however, one she doesn't talk about. It involves holding a straw at arms length and feeding a pickup stick held with the other hand into hole at the end of the straw. It's harder than it sounds, even if you are not visually impaired. Now, put on a set of prisms that disjoints and distorts the visual field, and the rapidly-put-the-pick-into-the-straw game becomes even better (read that harder--harder is what visual therapy is all about.) Physical therapy worked for me; were you to look at me you'd never realize that my gaze is a bit cocked. Some might also argue that it didn't work; it converted a situation of a right eye turn into seeing double. For the most part, this has never really bothered me. Perhaps I've just successfully learned to fake stereopsis. I'm able to substantially suppress the image of either eye when I want to. I have no problem seeing or at least judge depth at any distance. Fusion? Impossible. I long ago gave up. Nevertheless, I enjoyed a rerun of visual therapy using the Brock string. Barry's book is a must-read for anyone who has gone through some type of visual therapy. It also is a must read for a parent of a child with this type of visual impairment. But, such a read should not conclude that visual therapy is to be preferred over eye surgery for the very young. And, such a read should not necessarily conclude that you too can do what she did. But, such a read certainly will make you want to try to fix your gaze.
3D Miracle After reading this book, I will never take stereovision for granted again. The author, Susan Barry, so clearly describes that seeing space, depth, is an awesome experience. There is much interesting science information but the most valuable aspect of the book is the personal stories of those with abnormal sight. It caused me to rethink how I perceive the world. It also should remind us that our ideas about how life works must be tempered with humility; we are often just guessing. Those guesses, when taken as truth, can prevent improvements that would help people cope better with life. The author's style is friendly and personal so the science doesn't seem difficult. Once readers know Susan, we want to understand how her vision problems occurred and how they were fixed.
The gift of being told it's never too late Year after year, visit after visit to the eye doctor, I was told, "It's too late for you to have vision in your left eye. The ship has sailed. It's over. Forget about it. Never. See you next year." Like Susan Barry, I was born cross-eyed and my brain shut down sight in my left eye to prevent double vision. This year a confluence of events caused me to question conventional wisdom. They included nearing 40 (in October. Send gifts please), increasing presbyopia in my good eye (this is losing the ability to focus quickly as you age), and welcoming a nephew into the world who was diagnosed with moderate to severe brain damage. The more I read about my nephew Wynn's condition, the more I came to believe that the brain is an amazing machine capable of adapting. I told my eye doctor about my research and she recommended Fixing My Gaze. I saw myself so many times in this book - from the frustrated, clumsy child, to the student who had to work harder than others just to pass. In this book, Dr. Barry explains her condition (and my condition) in clear language, void of medical jargon. When the author recounts the details of her first view of the world in 3-D, somewhere in her 40's, I cheered. If you've ever had anyone tell you to give up on anything (not just your eye sight), or if you know someone who has been told that, read this book. It's inspirational. I began vision therapy today and look forward to seeing the world in ways I haven't witnessed before.
An Inspiring Book I have coped with strabismus all my life, and eagerly read this book. It is written by a person who started seeing in stereovision, after vision therapy sessions, at 48 years of age. She is an inspiration to me, and to others who have limited stereovision capacity.