So I went to a milonga (Argentine Tango social dance party) for a couple of hours, danced and also made quite a few observations.
1. Binocular focus is directly perceivable.
People normally say "connection", "presence", "engagement", when they mean, among other things, the appearance of a binocular (or perhaps also uniocular) focus.
The ability to directly perceive a binocular focus probably comes through relating to a personal experience of focusing. I clearly remember that I have seen in my life many people looking like the three dancers above. I even detected it was a pattern. I learned to notice this kind of look long ago, and I have always considered it beautiful. However, I did not relate to this kind of look, and I certainly did not think about it as connection, presence, or engagement.
In fact, binocular focus teaches us a lot about connection, presence, and engagement.
2. When looking at a person, you cannot distinguish binocular focus from mental focus
It is possible that for most people there is no such distinction. The experience of binocular vision makes it possible to have an extremely strong mental focus. If the eyes are open, the very act of shifting the gaze and switching the focus keeps you awake. Also, setting and achieving goals probably becomes strongly correlated with the tracking mechanism described in the previous post, the mechanism used by owls, eagles, and others. Say, you are a child, you see and want an ice-cream. You are tracking it with your eyes. After a while, every time you want something, the corresponding centers in the visual cortex probably get activated, which leads to an actual eye focus, where the object on which to focus may be arbitrary.
3. Sometimes it takes depth perception to understand the direction of the eyes
Maybe one can get without actual depth perception, but at least the experience of dance perception, or some kind of understanding of depth, is necessary. For example, this is a photography, so we do not have actual depth perception, but the experience of depth perception is helpful to at least try to trace the direction of the gaze.
4. Binocular tracking is directly perceivable
That is, if you see person A watching person B even as person B moves, you understand that person A is watching person B, or at least that person A is watching someone. In fact, if person A is going towards person B with tracking, this can be seen even better.
Of course, this is also perceivable without binocular vision or experience, and you can see and feel the connection, yet it is so much more informative when you can relate it to our own personal experience. Of course, it is also creates a feeling that you are like other people. It probably helps to understand and respect other people, but it probably also makes it more difficult to do things that are not accepted by other people.
5. At least sometimes soft focus can be distinguished from binocular tracking (which is essentially an over-focus). This seems to be an essential social skill. Again, it is probably best learned by relating to the personal experiences of soft (simple) focus as opposed to binocular tracking.
6. There is a difference between binocular tracking and binocular tracking with intention. Only the second one is an over-focus. The former is still a soft focus.
In fact, there is yet another mode, which is an intentional gaze with a soft focus. That happens when you are looking somewhere with some purpose, yet trying to cover a fairly large area with your gaze. For example, you are looking for someone.
7. It is not as informative to just see where someone is looking. It is much more informative to notice the timing of focusing or the timing of changing one kind of focus to another. In order to notice such timing on the fly, noticing various kinds of binocular (or possibly uniocular) focus (or lack of it) should be automatic.
8. In general, body language is three dimensional
I already gave many examples above, but there are many more. Distance detection is essential for reading body language. Distance detection could be done to some extent with one eye using the visual cues. However, it requires a fair amount of accuracy, and as I repeatedly pointed out, visual cues only work well after an actual binocular experience. I would go as far as to say that when you meet new people (of "unknown height and shape", forgive me for describing people in such an objectified way), in order to reliably detect social distances, at least a past binocular experience is necessary, if not actual binocular vision.
Without reliable distance detection, social distances do not even get learned properly. In order to do that one would need to communicate with the same people all the time (so their shape and size are known), and then there would not be enough variety of social distances. Of course, close social distances do get learned, when we are talking about distances so close that you can and will touch, perceive warmth of the body, and so on. For further distances, I think, I had some rough measures which were probably wrong is the person was too tall or too short.However, I did not learn to judge social distance between others well. Now I look at groups of people and I start to understand how they relate to each other by, in particular, seeing their distances from each other and relating to my own experiences. I will probably need to get more social experiences with binocular vision before I can feel it well in others.
There are many other elements of body language that are three-dimensional. Facing each other, or turning a little away and being at an angle, are very important. Yet, this cannot be reliably detected without a binocular experience - essentially, without a stereo experience.
9. Emotions can be perceived in volume, such as, for example, a certain atmosphere spread in the room.
Also, when I am looking and focusing, this becomes a much stronger emotional experience for me. If I am watching a dancing couple, then this couple is (a) highlighted, since it is in the focus; (b) everything else is blurred so I am not distracted; (c) body language and specifically eye focus are directly perceived; (d) this body language is perceived very clearly since subtle movements are noticed much better (this requires two eyes actually working together, just a binocular experience is not enough). After I perceive an emotion, this emotion starts growing in me, because of (b) above, that is, all distractions are blurred. If the emotion is strong enough, it strengthens the focus or creates an over-focus with the effect of a hunting owl, then (a), (b), and (d) are further enhanced, and so the emotion grows stronger and stronger.
At some point I imagined emotions spreading from the center of the room as a spherical wave, seeing the front (spherical surface) growing from the central point to include more and more couples. The visual system got activated in no time, since it had no such previous experience. This is probably the most complex three-dimensional phenomenon that I have visualized or perceived so far. Even now as I imagine growing spherical waves, I feel how it strengthens the visual pathways and the connection between left and right.After a few waves I start to feel strong pulsation in the back of the head, on the left and on the right.
10. Simple gestures like folding arms when feeling in danger or nervous can be perceived and interpreted without depth perception. However, they are still more meaningful in three dimensions, since folded arms are actually creating something like a wall in space, and this body language is perceived directly. Without depth perception or the experience of depth perception I perceived cross arms as a metaphor for hiding from the rest of the world, and when I saw crossed arms, I could relate it to my own experience of crossing my arms, yet I did not experience it directly as a wall. Furthermore, crossed arms are trivial to notice, but more subtle things can be difficult to notice without properly functioning binocular vision.
Some elements of body language, particularly those where I had no personal experience, had previously conveyed no emotion for me, or no meaning, and certain things I did not notice at all. For example, continuing the topic about women, the "slipping the foot in and out of the shoe" had previous conveyed no emotions for me whatsoever. It conveyed some knowledge since I read about this body language element, and I recall consciously trying to find it attractive, but I couldn't.
Another example is standing straight and with confidence. Not very meaningful without depth perception ability or depth perception experience. On the other head, touching one's face or biting one's lips is directly perceivable regardless of depth perception, even though I am sure that I will now be able to notice more subtle aspects, and binocular focus should help to notice the exact timing and to feel the exact reason.
11. Lastly, too many people are weird or socially awkward, even though they probably have binocular vision and all the other physical components. Thus, nobody gets surprised if you are watching another person or a couple, and not picking up the feeling of the situation, or the emotions, or not noticing some socially obvious signs.
1. Binocular focus is directly perceivable.
People normally say "connection", "presence", "engagement", when they mean, among other things, the appearance of a binocular (or perhaps also uniocular) focus.
The ability to directly perceive a binocular focus probably comes through relating to a personal experience of focusing. I clearly remember that I have seen in my life many people looking like the three dancers above. I even detected it was a pattern. I learned to notice this kind of look long ago, and I have always considered it beautiful. However, I did not relate to this kind of look, and I certainly did not think about it as connection, presence, or engagement.
In fact, binocular focus teaches us a lot about connection, presence, and engagement.
2. When looking at a person, you cannot distinguish binocular focus from mental focus
It is possible that for most people there is no such distinction. The experience of binocular vision makes it possible to have an extremely strong mental focus. If the eyes are open, the very act of shifting the gaze and switching the focus keeps you awake. Also, setting and achieving goals probably becomes strongly correlated with the tracking mechanism described in the previous post, the mechanism used by owls, eagles, and others. Say, you are a child, you see and want an ice-cream. You are tracking it with your eyes. After a while, every time you want something, the corresponding centers in the visual cortex probably get activated, which leads to an actual eye focus, where the object on which to focus may be arbitrary.
3. Sometimes it takes depth perception to understand the direction of the eyes
Maybe one can get without actual depth perception, but at least the experience of dance perception, or some kind of understanding of depth, is necessary. For example, this is a photography, so we do not have actual depth perception, but the experience of depth perception is helpful to at least try to trace the direction of the gaze.
4. Binocular tracking is directly perceivable
That is, if you see person A watching person B even as person B moves, you understand that person A is watching person B, or at least that person A is watching someone. In fact, if person A is going towards person B with tracking, this can be seen even better.
Of course, this is also perceivable without binocular vision or experience, and you can see and feel the connection, yet it is so much more informative when you can relate it to our own personal experience. Of course, it is also creates a feeling that you are like other people. It probably helps to understand and respect other people, but it probably also makes it more difficult to do things that are not accepted by other people.
5. At least sometimes soft focus can be distinguished from binocular tracking (which is essentially an over-focus). This seems to be an essential social skill. Again, it is probably best learned by relating to the personal experiences of soft (simple) focus as opposed to binocular tracking.
6. There is a difference between binocular tracking and binocular tracking with intention. Only the second one is an over-focus. The former is still a soft focus.
In fact, there is yet another mode, which is an intentional gaze with a soft focus. That happens when you are looking somewhere with some purpose, yet trying to cover a fairly large area with your gaze. For example, you are looking for someone.
7. It is not as informative to just see where someone is looking. It is much more informative to notice the timing of focusing or the timing of changing one kind of focus to another. In order to notice such timing on the fly, noticing various kinds of binocular (or possibly uniocular) focus (or lack of it) should be automatic.
8. In general, body language is three dimensional
I already gave many examples above, but there are many more. Distance detection is essential for reading body language. Distance detection could be done to some extent with one eye using the visual cues. However, it requires a fair amount of accuracy, and as I repeatedly pointed out, visual cues only work well after an actual binocular experience. I would go as far as to say that when you meet new people (of "unknown height and shape", forgive me for describing people in such an objectified way), in order to reliably detect social distances, at least a past binocular experience is necessary, if not actual binocular vision.
Without reliable distance detection, social distances do not even get learned properly. In order to do that one would need to communicate with the same people all the time (so their shape and size are known), and then there would not be enough variety of social distances. Of course, close social distances do get learned, when we are talking about distances so close that you can and will touch, perceive warmth of the body, and so on. For further distances, I think, I had some rough measures which were probably wrong is the person was too tall or too short.However, I did not learn to judge social distance between others well. Now I look at groups of people and I start to understand how they relate to each other by, in particular, seeing their distances from each other and relating to my own experiences. I will probably need to get more social experiences with binocular vision before I can feel it well in others.
There are many other elements of body language that are three-dimensional. Facing each other, or turning a little away and being at an angle, are very important. Yet, this cannot be reliably detected without a binocular experience - essentially, without a stereo experience.
9. Emotions can be perceived in volume, such as, for example, a certain atmosphere spread in the room.
Also, when I am looking and focusing, this becomes a much stronger emotional experience for me. If I am watching a dancing couple, then this couple is (a) highlighted, since it is in the focus; (b) everything else is blurred so I am not distracted; (c) body language and specifically eye focus are directly perceived; (d) this body language is perceived very clearly since subtle movements are noticed much better (this requires two eyes actually working together, just a binocular experience is not enough). After I perceive an emotion, this emotion starts growing in me, because of (b) above, that is, all distractions are blurred. If the emotion is strong enough, it strengthens the focus or creates an over-focus with the effect of a hunting owl, then (a), (b), and (d) are further enhanced, and so the emotion grows stronger and stronger.
At some point I imagined emotions spreading from the center of the room as a spherical wave, seeing the front (spherical surface) growing from the central point to include more and more couples. The visual system got activated in no time, since it had no such previous experience. This is probably the most complex three-dimensional phenomenon that I have visualized or perceived so far. Even now as I imagine growing spherical waves, I feel how it strengthens the visual pathways and the connection between left and right.After a few waves I start to feel strong pulsation in the back of the head, on the left and on the right.
10. Simple gestures like folding arms when feeling in danger or nervous can be perceived and interpreted without depth perception. However, they are still more meaningful in three dimensions, since folded arms are actually creating something like a wall in space, and this body language is perceived directly. Without depth perception or the experience of depth perception I perceived cross arms as a metaphor for hiding from the rest of the world, and when I saw crossed arms, I could relate it to my own experience of crossing my arms, yet I did not experience it directly as a wall. Furthermore, crossed arms are trivial to notice, but more subtle things can be difficult to notice without properly functioning binocular vision.
Some elements of body language, particularly those where I had no personal experience, had previously conveyed no emotion for me, or no meaning, and certain things I did not notice at all. For example, continuing the topic about women, the "slipping the foot in and out of the shoe" had previous conveyed no emotions for me whatsoever. It conveyed some knowledge since I read about this body language element, and I recall consciously trying to find it attractive, but I couldn't.
Another example is standing straight and with confidence. Not very meaningful without depth perception ability or depth perception experience. On the other head, touching one's face or biting one's lips is directly perceivable regardless of depth perception, even though I am sure that I will now be able to notice more subtle aspects, and binocular focus should help to notice the exact timing and to feel the exact reason.
11. Lastly, too many people are weird or socially awkward, even though they probably have binocular vision and all the other physical components. Thus, nobody gets surprised if you are watching another person or a couple, and not picking up the feeling of the situation, or the emotions, or not noticing some socially obvious signs.
No comments:
Post a Comment