I decided to try to suppress stereopsis to see if I am still able to push everything on a flat screen.
I started trying outside, on the street. The method I used is the following: I tried to conscious reinterpret whatever I was seeing as a flat picture. I tried looking with one eye and looking with both eyes. I found it particularly useful to look at the road, thinking that as the road moved away from me, it was going up. I was also trying to see people coming towards me as going down and growing, increasing in their size. I was trying to see people going away from me as going up and decreasing in their size. In addition, I was trying to soften the outlines of the objects to see people and other objects as pasted on top of the background.
Sometimes the illusion was starting to work, but then something happened, and I went back to stereopsis. I found the following triggers:
Moving person. If there was a person walking close enough to me, then it almost inevitably triggered stereopsis. It was easier to see the person two-dimensionally if he or she was moving either towards me, or away from me, or perpendicularly (the easiest). Even then I had to remind myself that I was seeing a flat picture pasted on a flat screen and to constantly inhibit any 3D interpretation. If the person was moving diagonally, and fairly close to me, I basically had to look away, because I couldn't push such a person onto a flat screen.
Trees. I was somewhat able to view trees as flat. However, as soon as I looked up on the interweaving branches and the complex patterns of the leaves, the stereopsis became very strong, and there was virtually no way of suppressing it. It was like looking at something red and saying to myself "It is blue! It is blue!" in the face of evidence to the contrary.
Sharp outlines. This is a very strong reflex. I would start to feel I was going back to a flat way of looking at least in some respects, then I would suddenly see a plant, a person, or anything else, with a very sharp, clear outline, and the sharpness of the outline will collide with the flatness I was trying to look at face to face. The stereopsis gets restored suddenly, and I feel as if a bubble suddenly appeared in my brain and was rising to the surface. In order to keep some flatness it is necessary to soften the outline and to repeat to myself that this is just a flat picture, not a 3D object, but this still does not quite work. Basically, I had to look away from all sharp outlines if I were to get at least some flat effect.
Shadows. This reflex is also quite strong. If I see a shadow that is a particularly good cue for volume, that is, its relation to the object casting the shadow highlights the three-dimensionality of the object and its location in space, it is again very difficult to see a flat picture. It is not enough to ignore the shadow. I have to imagine that the shadow goes at a wrong angle in order to keep some flatness. I have to constantly keep reminding myself that the shadow is slanted and to constantly inhibit the 3D interpretation of the shadow.
Perspective. This is perhaps the strongest reflex. A few times I felt like I was starting to see a flat screen again, that is, my previous reflexes were starting to work. Then I would suddenly notice that I was seeing a path going away from me, or an arch enclosing the entrance to some building. This would elicit a strong sense of perspective immediately restoring the stereopsis. It is very difficult to suppress the stereoscopic interpretation of perspective. I have to constantly remind myself that the verticals I am seeing are not verticals, but slanted lines.
Overall, when there were many of those triggers, it was virtually impossible to maintain any kind of flatness. It was much easier if I turned away from most such objects and tried to only look at things that were not strong stereoscopic triggers. It was easier to see flatness if I was not moving and if other things were not moving either, at least not very close to me. I found many more stereoscopic triggers outside than inside. Now I am in a cafe with Internet writing down these notes. Here there are not so many triggers so it is easier to suppress stereopsis. In fact, here it is even difficult to say whether stereopsis is active or not, since for this environment it doesn't make that much difference. The organization of space in this cafe really encourages seeing everything as a big mess of pictures pasted on top of each other. Also, the coloring scheme used in this cafe allows me to see the floor and the walls as continuations of each other, which also makes it easier to suppress stereopsis.
I conclude that it is better to work on developing stereopsis outside.
Another conclusion is that it is virtually impossible or at least very difficult for a normal person to experience flat vision, given that it is already so difficult for me. There are so many triggers of a stereoscopic worldview, and most of those triggers have to be inhibited in order to gain a different perspective. If you are interested, I suggest you start from a painting or a photograph. Look at it with one eye and try to alternate between the flat interpretation and the 3D interpretation. When I say "alternate", I mean "consciously switch back and forth between two interpretations", just like you can do with this picture:
You can see how looking at one or the other mouth or nose triggers one or the other interpretation. In much the same way certain objects, shades, or outlines can trigger 3D or 2D interpretation of the whole scene.
This reminds me of my work with a speech therapist a little less than a year ago. I was working to improve my English pronunciation, since even though I was and am completely fluent, I had gotten tired of the imperfections of my speech.
When people live abroad and use a foreign language in their daily activities, they usually pick up more and more words, so their vocabulary grows, their understanding of the subtleties of the meaning of the words and of the grammar gets refined. However, for many people their pronunciation does not get better. A lot of Russians, for example, live in the United States for decades, and still pronounce words in the same way. They will say "bus" with the same vowel sound as in "father", over, and over, and over again. In fact, many Russians will not even hear the difference if you ask them to pay attention and compare the vowel sounds, and then pronounce "bus" and "father" very clearly. So strong are the habits of the mother tongue.
Similarly, a lot of Russians will pronounce the word "very" with a sound [w], even though [v] is almost identical to its Russian counterpart, while [w] is quite unusual. There is something in the way people learn and conceptualize Russian and in the way Russian native speakers learn and conceptualize English that makes many Russian native speakers incorrectly deduce that "very" should be pronounced as "wery". Again, it is difficult to hear the difference, because once you have a framework in your conscious or subconscious mind, you hear what you expect to hear.
As I was working with my speech therapist, I was recognizing more and more of my linguistic habits. It was not so much about being able to say a particular sound, more about simply hearing the sounds of the English language as they were. I recall one particularly successful session when I felt I made a lot of progress. At some point my teacher was saying some words or simple sentences, and I was repeating them. If it was not good enough, he would say again, otherwise he would move on to some other word or sentence. I remember how things started to really work when I was able to stop listening to the language and start listening to the sounds. I disengaged from the meaning and was just reproducing the phonetic patterns that I was hearing. As
I was able to let go of the meaning more and more, I stopped recognizing the words, and the process became easier and easier. A few times my teacher was very satisfied with how I repeated some word or sentence, and then I asked him to explain, what was the word or the words that I was repeating. In most cases words were very simple, yet I couldn't get them. When after a few repetitions I would understand the word, I was often surprized that this word or expression can also be heard or pronounced in this new way. It was probably essential that I did not have written words in front of me, for my habitual way of saying and hearing was strongly connected with how a word is written. I subconsciously applied some of the principles of Russian language and it made me hear and say English words in a typically Russian way. For example, when seeing the written word "letter", I would naturally try to pronounce the sound [t] twice. Similarly, I would make a longer sound [s] when saying "massive" than is necessary. When saying "baby", I would hear and pronounce the second vowel sound as [ə], the second vowel second in "after" or "matter", instead of pronouncing it like the vowel sound in "tree".
I started trying outside, on the street. The method I used is the following: I tried to conscious reinterpret whatever I was seeing as a flat picture. I tried looking with one eye and looking with both eyes. I found it particularly useful to look at the road, thinking that as the road moved away from me, it was going up. I was also trying to see people coming towards me as going down and growing, increasing in their size. I was trying to see people going away from me as going up and decreasing in their size. In addition, I was trying to soften the outlines of the objects to see people and other objects as pasted on top of the background.
Sometimes the illusion was starting to work, but then something happened, and I went back to stereopsis. I found the following triggers:
Moving person. If there was a person walking close enough to me, then it almost inevitably triggered stereopsis. It was easier to see the person two-dimensionally if he or she was moving either towards me, or away from me, or perpendicularly (the easiest). Even then I had to remind myself that I was seeing a flat picture pasted on a flat screen and to constantly inhibit any 3D interpretation. If the person was moving diagonally, and fairly close to me, I basically had to look away, because I couldn't push such a person onto a flat screen.
Trees. I was somewhat able to view trees as flat. However, as soon as I looked up on the interweaving branches and the complex patterns of the leaves, the stereopsis became very strong, and there was virtually no way of suppressing it. It was like looking at something red and saying to myself "It is blue! It is blue!" in the face of evidence to the contrary.
Sharp outlines. This is a very strong reflex. I would start to feel I was going back to a flat way of looking at least in some respects, then I would suddenly see a plant, a person, or anything else, with a very sharp, clear outline, and the sharpness of the outline will collide with the flatness I was trying to look at face to face. The stereopsis gets restored suddenly, and I feel as if a bubble suddenly appeared in my brain and was rising to the surface. In order to keep some flatness it is necessary to soften the outline and to repeat to myself that this is just a flat picture, not a 3D object, but this still does not quite work. Basically, I had to look away from all sharp outlines if I were to get at least some flat effect.
Shadows. This reflex is also quite strong. If I see a shadow that is a particularly good cue for volume, that is, its relation to the object casting the shadow highlights the three-dimensionality of the object and its location in space, it is again very difficult to see a flat picture. It is not enough to ignore the shadow. I have to imagine that the shadow goes at a wrong angle in order to keep some flatness. I have to constantly keep reminding myself that the shadow is slanted and to constantly inhibit the 3D interpretation of the shadow.
Perspective. This is perhaps the strongest reflex. A few times I felt like I was starting to see a flat screen again, that is, my previous reflexes were starting to work. Then I would suddenly notice that I was seeing a path going away from me, or an arch enclosing the entrance to some building. This would elicit a strong sense of perspective immediately restoring the stereopsis. It is very difficult to suppress the stereoscopic interpretation of perspective. I have to constantly remind myself that the verticals I am seeing are not verticals, but slanted lines.
Overall, when there were many of those triggers, it was virtually impossible to maintain any kind of flatness. It was much easier if I turned away from most such objects and tried to only look at things that were not strong stereoscopic triggers. It was easier to see flatness if I was not moving and if other things were not moving either, at least not very close to me. I found many more stereoscopic triggers outside than inside. Now I am in a cafe with Internet writing down these notes. Here there are not so many triggers so it is easier to suppress stereopsis. In fact, here it is even difficult to say whether stereopsis is active or not, since for this environment it doesn't make that much difference. The organization of space in this cafe really encourages seeing everything as a big mess of pictures pasted on top of each other. Also, the coloring scheme used in this cafe allows me to see the floor and the walls as continuations of each other, which also makes it easier to suppress stereopsis.
I conclude that it is better to work on developing stereopsis outside.
Another conclusion is that it is virtually impossible or at least very difficult for a normal person to experience flat vision, given that it is already so difficult for me. There are so many triggers of a stereoscopic worldview, and most of those triggers have to be inhibited in order to gain a different perspective. If you are interested, I suggest you start from a painting or a photograph. Look at it with one eye and try to alternate between the flat interpretation and the 3D interpretation. When I say "alternate", I mean "consciously switch back and forth between two interpretations", just like you can do with this picture:
This reminds me of my work with a speech therapist a little less than a year ago. I was working to improve my English pronunciation, since even though I was and am completely fluent, I had gotten tired of the imperfections of my speech.
When people live abroad and use a foreign language in their daily activities, they usually pick up more and more words, so their vocabulary grows, their understanding of the subtleties of the meaning of the words and of the grammar gets refined. However, for many people their pronunciation does not get better. A lot of Russians, for example, live in the United States for decades, and still pronounce words in the same way. They will say "bus" with the same vowel sound as in "father", over, and over, and over again. In fact, many Russians will not even hear the difference if you ask them to pay attention and compare the vowel sounds, and then pronounce "bus" and "father" very clearly. So strong are the habits of the mother tongue.
Similarly, a lot of Russians will pronounce the word "very" with a sound [w], even though [v] is almost identical to its Russian counterpart, while [w] is quite unusual. There is something in the way people learn and conceptualize Russian and in the way Russian native speakers learn and conceptualize English that makes many Russian native speakers incorrectly deduce that "very" should be pronounced as "wery". Again, it is difficult to hear the difference, because once you have a framework in your conscious or subconscious mind, you hear what you expect to hear.
As I was working with my speech therapist, I was recognizing more and more of my linguistic habits. It was not so much about being able to say a particular sound, more about simply hearing the sounds of the English language as they were. I recall one particularly successful session when I felt I made a lot of progress. At some point my teacher was saying some words or simple sentences, and I was repeating them. If it was not good enough, he would say again, otherwise he would move on to some other word or sentence. I remember how things started to really work when I was able to stop listening to the language and start listening to the sounds. I disengaged from the meaning and was just reproducing the phonetic patterns that I was hearing. As
I was able to let go of the meaning more and more, I stopped recognizing the words, and the process became easier and easier. A few times my teacher was very satisfied with how I repeated some word or sentence, and then I asked him to explain, what was the word or the words that I was repeating. In most cases words were very simple, yet I couldn't get them. When after a few repetitions I would understand the word, I was often surprized that this word or expression can also be heard or pronounced in this new way. It was probably essential that I did not have written words in front of me, for my habitual way of saying and hearing was strongly connected with how a word is written. I subconsciously applied some of the principles of Russian language and it made me hear and say English words in a typically Russian way. For example, when seeing the written word "letter", I would naturally try to pronounce the sound [t] twice. Similarly, I would make a longer sound [s] when saying "massive" than is necessary. When saying "baby", I would hear and pronounce the second vowel sound as [ə], the second vowel second in "after" or "matter", instead of pronouncing it like the vowel sound in "tree".
No comments:
Post a Comment