The visual system is the dominant sense in humans. We tend to rely on the visual sense, even when other senses may be better for gathering information.We began our exploration of vision by noting that there are two visual systems at work. The visual field is approximately 180 degrees of work space. The central visual field is made up of the center 90 degrees with the peripheral visual field taking up 45 degrees on either side.
The central visual field absorbs information. As we walked around the room, we gathered information about the objects, textures and colors. When we greeted one another, we looked into their eyes, at their faces and absorbed information about them through our central visual field. Moving quickly in and around one another we relied on our peripheral visual system. This part of our vision is adept at noticing movement and to orient ourselves in space.
In our mirror exercise, we explored both systems. At first we did the exercise while focusing on our partner with our central visual field and then we tried with our peripheral field. What did you notice that was different between these two?
Working with a partner, we also worked on turning down our vision so that it did not dominate quite as much. What was your experience of this exercise? Given the analogy of the equilizer on a stereo system, did you have any success in changing your levels of attention? Did this change your experience of your senses throughout your day?
Working with a partner, we also worked on turning down our vision so that it did not dominate quite as much. What was your experience of this exercise? Given the analogy of the equilizer on a stereo system, did you have any success in changing your levels of attention? Did this change your experience of your senses throughout your day?
19 comments:
It is remarkable how loud things got when I closed my eyes. My sense of touch is much more astute as well. I am grateful that our eyes have adapted over thousands of years to be capable of protecting us, as was demonstrated in the exercise where we all kept circulating in a smaller and smaller amount of space while managed to avoid crashing into one another. It makes me wonder how our sight is continuing to evolve, now that we may not to be quite so concerned about predators and tend to spend more of our time focused on a book or screen. Was our line of vision as good 500 years ago as it is today? One of the things that struck me the most about the mirror exercise was how much better I was able to follow my partner's hand when I was not focused directly on it. The whole exercise seemed to flow much easier when her movements were not at the center of my attention. This exercise also made me think about taking it one step further where you are having a conversation with someone, or listening to intricate music while following your partner's lead. Then, playing with the "knobs", testing how well you can follow the movements when your mind is engaged in alternate senses. - Suzanne Wilson
The exercise of walking around the room and being in an increasingly more crowded area made me realize that our peripheral vision is way more important that I had previously thought, although I don't think I had previously thought about it. Suzanne mentioned the evolutionary aspect of vision, which I consider one of the most interesting evolutionary developments. Eyes first developed as light sensors and could only differentiate between light and dark. Then it was beneficial for some organisms to be able to differential between colors, and then objects and now we have these amazing eyes which previously helped us get away from predators and focus on prey and now help us exist in crowded social situations.
I found it really beneficial to focus on other senses while my eyes were still open. It is easy to get trapped focusing on sight but it is so wonderful being able to experience situations with the other four senses too.
The exercise on central and peripheral vision was really fascinating. As one would expect, when focusing all of my attention into my central visual field, objects were clear and easily decipherable, hence the reason that we are visually dependent on this region/expanse of vision. My peripheral vision picked up more detail that I would have guessed, yet was much foggier than my central vision. Although both areas of vision are constantly at work, it seems as though we become so dependent on our central vision that we seem to belittle the abilities of our peripheral vision. In times of danger, for instance, our peripheral vision will activate, though in most day-to-day situations, it seems to be put on the back burner. When I was mimicking my partner's movements, while using my peripheral vision, I could detect that her hands were moving, but it was difficult to tell which specific fingers were moving, etc.
Turning on certain modes or areas of vision was easy for me, yet the second exercise was more difficult. Perhaps because we were experimenting with the subtraction or addition of other senses we are less dependent on (or were simply less detectable in our given environment)—such as listening, to our sense of smell, my experience was nothing unusual. I struggled to separate out all of my various incoming sensations, and as a result, I seemed to block out all senses. I felt as if moving in monotonous circles, unable to focus on anything except the soreness of my weak arms. –C. McCoy
During the mirror exercise, it was difficult to keep looking over my partner’s shoulder; I had to keep reminding myself not to look at the body part that was moving. That seemed to be the most difficult part. Otherwise, I guess it was a little difficult to pick up on the details of the movements when we were not focusing on what was moving. However, when we could use our central visual field, I found that by focusing on one appendage that was moving, I might miss when she started to move another, and I’d get a little behind.
When I tried to turn down my vision, my eyes would lose focus but only until something would catch my attention. Then without even thinking, my eyes would focus on that object. It was hard to keep it turned down. I take American Sign Language from a Deaf teacher who is constantly telling us hearing students how much we rely on our hearing and need to use our vision more. While it may be our dominant sense, as hearing individuals, we really don’t use our sight to its full advantage. It’s amazing how much more aware individuals of the Deaf population are when it comes to picking up on visual information. The amount of visual input we actually use is nothing compared to what they notice and retain. I think it’s interesting how much more visually aware we could be.
~Marcee Wickline
It was very interesting exploring vision. Vision is the sense that we use almost continuously. I always knew that we could see in a large area, and that our sight was clearest where our eyeballs were pointing, but I didn’t know that we had two visual systems. Our two powerful vision systems are very different in the kinds of information it collects and sends to the brain.
When we first walked around the room using just our central vision, I noticed by brain was getting a lot of information bout colors and textures. More than I’d ever noticed before, but at the same time it was almost information overload. What was my brain to do with all that information? For walking around in a room full of moving people your peripheral vision is far more efficient. With the peripheral system you are also processing a lot of information, but because it has a purpose(not running into anyone) it seems easier to handle. You basically calculate where everyone is moving to and how fast to predict where they will be in a few seconds so, you won’t be in that exact same spot.
When working with a partner I noticed it was easier to mirror her using my central vision. With the peripheral vision I noticed 2 things happening. 1 thought I was able to follow where the arm was, I wasn’t always about to tell how my partner was articulating her finders. 2ndly I noticed that my mind wanted to wander and think about other things while I was using my peripheral vision.
-Sandra Viall
Vision exercise was fascinating to me and I noticed that our vision is more important than what I thought before. Partner mirroring exercise was fun and informative. First, I used central vision and did the exercise. I felt like I was very concentrated in this exercise and I was only thinking about how my partner's movement was. I was busy following her motions. However, when we tried the peripheral vision, I was still following my partner's motion but I was thinking of other things and I was little distracted by not clearly seeing her exact motion such as her fingertip movements. My eyes were trying to look at her so I kept my eye on the point on the wall far back of my partner. That way I could keep not looking at her. I could hear lots of things such as some tuning sound that was coming from the other class room. It was very interesting exercise overall. Finding more informations of what I've already have and what I use every second is really fascinating and useful to me.
I was amazed at the different sensations and information recieved from the 2 types of vision. My central vision gave me a completely different sense of my surroundings than my peripheral vision. Of course, moving through space brought me to this realization,but also our mirror exercise. I was interested in seeing how my movements would change due to which part of my vision I used. My central vision allowed me to follow detailed movements, but I had trouble seeing the whole pcture and it took me a moment or two to see a change in movement of a body part that I wasn't centrally focused on. When using m peripheral vision I was much better at mirroring general movements and the whole body. I got caught up in the movement and began to forget mirrorig and I began imitating. Which I immediatly realized and laughed about. When my partner began moving her arms, I couldnt tell if her palms or the back of her hands were facing me, so although I was better at mirroring her broad movements, i couldnt see the details. It was all very interesting.
-Jessica Jensen
I always thought that my central vision was much stronger than my peripheral vision because I have an eye syndrome that doesn't allow me complete access to my peripheral vision. However, during this exercise I found my peripheral vision to be actually a little stronger than my central focus vision, especially when we were walking around the room. Perhaps, I've developed my peripheral vision to be stronger over the years.
The partner exercise was interesting but tiring and intense.
The first part of the exercise was quite comfortable - having a central focus and then looking over my partner's shoulder while we were mirroring each other was interesting to me because I truly discovered differences. For example while mirroring during my central focus vision, I paid close attention to my partner. However, the opposite occurred when changing the focus to the left shoulder. I found that I was actually watching others as well as my partner during that portion of the exercise. It reminded me of multi-tasking. When one takes on multi activities, they all get dilluted to some degree just like my focus did during the left shoulder part of the exercise.
When we were doing the following with the hands, my partner and I both complained about our shoulders and wrists hurting and that took away the focus from the exercise. I agree with the other writers, that during the mirror exercise, having a softer focus made it easier to follow my partner instead of having an intense central focus.
Before this class I never realized how heavily I relied on my sense of sight. For some strange reason I had always thought that our senses were relatively balanced. Yet in reality when I simply just closed my eyes my entire world changed. I could hear quieter noses that I wouldn't have noticed otherwise and I could feel my feet laying flat on the floor as I swayed slightly. My favorite part of this class was when we mirrored each other’s actions. It got much more difficult to do specific movements when looking through my peripheral vision. It was easy for me to see the general motion that the person was making, however I struggled with the minute details. It was a great way to see the difference (no pun intended) between peripheral and central vision. Throughout the rest of the day I tried to play with my senses. When I was walking home from class I switched back and forth from relying on my sense of touch to my sense of sight. I tried to feel each step and whether or not it was slippery, smooth, uneven, hard or soft. Then I focused on taking in the entirety of my surroundings. It was a very different feeling and it was interesting to see how well each sense could instantly adapt if needed. -Emily Stromme
I thought it was really interesting when you pointed out that our center vision absorbs all the information and our peripheral vision makes us aware of what is going on around us. I have heard that before, but like you said, it’s something that we usually take for granted, so it was really great to actually pay attention to what my eyes and vision can do.
My favorite exercise today was the walking fast/running around the room activity. It was so cool to realize that even though I wasn’t exactly focusing and paying close attention as I was moving, I still had an idea of who was/were around me and that kept me from actually bumping into people. When you made the area that we had to work with smaller and smaller, it definitely got harder to keep bumping into people, but my peripheral vision certainly helped.
I also enjoyed the mirror exercise. It’s amazing how fast my eyes were able to change their focus as I followed my partner’s movements. What I didn’t like was the tai-chi exercise. It was just so hard for me to remain focus when my arms were so sore and tired. Instead of experimenting with my senses, I ended up thinking how much longer I had to do move like that :(
In regards to my senses as a stereo system, my sense of smell was not working today. I’ve been sick for over a month now, but my nose was extremely stuffed today for some reason. I noticed that I pretty much had no appetite today because I wasn’t able to smell anything, including food. However, my sense of sight came to the rescue when I saw my roommate cooking a few delicious dishes.
- F. Widjaja
Focusing on vision was interesting to me. I find it remarkable to think how our senses work together and separately. We take our senses for granted, and it is really mind opening to fully appreciate them through these types of exercises. It was fascinating to realize how much our vision protects us. The exercise of circling each other in increasingly smaller spaces showed just how much vision keeps us from bumping into things. Of course I already knew this, but I became so much more aware of it through this exercise. I also enjoyed taking deeper notice of the differences between peripheral and central vision. It was a bit intense to really focus completely on some ones face. I realized that I am often distracted by my peripheral vision. I also realized that it is easier to copy details with my central vision, yet I get more of a sense of the emotion of the movement with my peripheral vision. Does that make sense? Another thing that stood out to me was how much louder things are when my eyes were closed. It shows how our other senses compensate when one of them is tuned out.
I defenitely noticed a marked difference between peripheral and central vision. I noticed that central vision is much more sharp, whereas in peripheral vision I had trouble making out finer details. I also noticed that in perepheral vision things that are not moving are virtually invisible untill they move.
Jessica (Mairi) Holtzner
I am really grateful for my sense of sight, especially peripheral vision that helped me move through a crowded space. Out of the activities, I liked the mirror one the most. Using my central vision, I was able to follow my partner’s movements very quickly, however, I was only focused on one certain body part and if she moved both her feet and hand at the same time, I would not be able to follow as fast. With the peripheral vision, I was able to cover a greater image distance and see all of my partner’s movements, however, I felt like my vision wasn’t as clear and sometimes I had a hard time figuring out what my partner is doing with her hand even though I knew she was moving it. Sahar Z.
it was amazing how well our senses are heightened when the focus is shifted off of our eyes and concentrated to the other senses we naturally have. our visual system is so vital in our lives that its difficult to sway away from it because its not something we, as humans, would normally do.
As we did the mirror exercise, it was pretty easy to follow the other person with both eyes focusing on the them. as we began to switch the focus to just one side of the person or to the upper corner of the person and by not focusing on their hands, it became extremely challenging to continue to mimic their movements. my mind couldn't comprehend the movements with just the peripherals, it needed the entire focus to be on the person in-order to perform the task.
In an animal behavior course I took last summer quarter, I learned about the visual field of animals. Those animals which were primarily predators like lions have their eyes set in the front of their faces because their ability to catch prey in front of them requires a strong central vision. While prey such as water buffalo or rabbits have their eyes set with one on each side of their heads so they have a strong peripheral vision that will allow them to simultaneously scan for prey from both sides of their body without much head movement.
In our exercise we focused on peripheral and then our central vision, and it gave me a strong idea of what its like to have the vision of prey and predators. With peripheral vision, I felt that I was much more in control with my movements and they were much more in sync with my partner during our mirror exercise. When we focused on central vision, I felt that I had to much attention on the simple task and my movements were very rigid and less in sync. I felt that the exercise didn't require strong central vision use to perform which is why my movements were super rigid.
-Hanalore Alupay
Human vision is a really majestic sense of all senses. Our brain is pretty good as far as it processes vision.
Today's class went complimentary to my Computer Vision class. Given the peripheral vision, it is quite amazing how effective we are in not colliding with anyone. So far we haven't had any "smart" cars or robots that can move as effectively as a dog/cat (leave alone humans). Every moment we are presented with an ENORMOUS amount of information in front of our eyes (think of it composed of tiny colored dots) that we process in seconds is JUST crazy. Finally, our last project in Computer Vision involved face detection on 2D images, and it was no better then a 5 year old (only 60% accuracy after taking about 20 mins to run as compared to nearly perfect accuracy of a child in almost seconds).
Based on the experience on mirroring I noticed that the central vision had more resolution (details) as compared to peripheral. Even then peripheral is very sensitive, and I could follow the hand's position but not the exact placement of fingers. I also tried it on my partner's peripheral vision seeing if he can distinguish between my curling of finger from left to right or from right to left (as far as I can tell, my partner only noticed movement). This is supported by the structure of our eyes since middle areas are more sensitive to color (more cones) while peripheral to the intensity of light (more rods). Moreover while we held our partner's hand and rotated it around it was quite easy with central or peripheral vision. However, as I shifted onto different senses, I noticed touch and smell more than the others. Before I was just focussing on the whole hand of my partner, but after touch I could now detect what the orientation of my partner's fingers were to mine. Moreover, I could tell by slight change in smell whether the hands got closer or were far.
On this day I was feeling pretty nauseous. I had already been sick before class. During the mirror exercise I found it particularly hard to focus with the central vision because it made me feel more sick. I felt relieved to switch to the peripheral vision. I also found it interesting that it was so hard to stay focused on one person's eyes for the whole length of the room. It was very difficult for me. I felt uncomfortable after a second and my eyes wanted to wander and they did; it almost felt uncontrollable. I tired really hard to keep focused on one person, but most of the time my eyes won. I think that some other people may have had this problem too.
*Kali
I hadn't realized how extensive of a hold our vision had on us. And it is draining; to lay down with closed eyes and just rest is such a relief on busy days. Our vision helps us make judgements: I remember shirking away from poop shaped twinky cakes during elementary school halloween parties. Food tastes different when I close my eyes. All our lives we depend on vision to guide us, so important it is to our well being.
It was amazing to think about how limited our visual system actually is. We can only see a small portion of the 360 degree plane in perfect clarity, the rest our brain makes snap judgements, assumptions, and extensions. We only see black and white in the dark. Little children see more blue colors while the elderly see the world in a more yellow hue. Noticing how our eyes are on the front of our head facing forward like a predator made me think about how different our lives would be if me made a slight change to our vision, moving our eyes to the sides of our heads. The extreme dominance of our vision would mean a little change would make a huge difference. The all-important connection of looking someone in the eye wouldn't be nearly as powerful, since we would now have the ability to make eye contact with our boss in one eye and oggle the office cutie with the other. Even a plausible change in vision, like color blindness, taking away one dimension of our vision, changes how people look at textures. It's inspiring to think that color blind people have made careers spotting camouflage based on this seemlingly slight change in vision.
-Eugenia Prezhdo
This mirror exercise was extremely difficult to grasp in the beginning. We do base our eyes as the core sense in a daily bases. Being rather shy, I am not used to making eye contact with people often. This class was a new experience that in many ways challenged me to overcome my fears. Staring at someone in the eye is out of my comfort zone due to my culture background. First, when we were walking in through space I felt at ease. Unexpectedly, we geared our attention to greeting and looking at each other in the eyes. To my amazement, I found this experience extremely pleasing and welcoming due to my classmates. My eyes tend to wonder off in space on a regular day so in class focusing on one target was tough. At a point when I was staring in my partner’s eyes I felt as my eyes were going crossed. What I have realized is when I make eye contact with someone this is giving me a personal connection with the other person. I will take away what I have learned in this class and apply it to the outside world.
-QMLN
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