I knew that the observation deck is open until late at night so I decided to go up and see what the city looks like in three dimensions.
As I was waiting in line, I was looking at other people - mostly women, but also just people talking to each other, or not even talking, but standing nearby, being aware of each other. I felt I was neither more nor less than one more person in the line, and I felt that other people were aware of it. That is, I was participating in this social protocol, waiting in line, together with the other people. My past experiences used to be more subjective: waiting in line had felt like me following the protocol by myself. The protocol, that is, the sequence of actions necessary to get to the top of the building. This time, however, I felt I was participating in a social interaction.
Now, as far as observing other people goes, on one side, it became much easier than before. On the other side, now other people can see, where I am looking. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it creates a certain social dynamics: they can look back at you, in different ways. They can make eye contact with you, then both of you decide, what kind of eye contact and how long to hold it, and so on. I am not necessarily talking about women, rather in general about observing other people.
I got close to the beginning of the line and was prepared to go and buy my ticket. There were several windows, but some were without people. I made two steps towards a window and realized that there was no ticket agent there - there were only four agents out of probably six windows. At this moment the next two people in line went ahead of me to get a ticket from another agent who just became available. I felt anxiety that I was not in control of the situation. Then I realized that now I had binocular vision with stereopsis and all other bells and whistles, so I should be able to orient myself in such trivial situations as well as an average person, even though I had failed to reach this standard in the past. I looked at the windows and saw which ones had ticket agents and which were empty. Then I consciously used the detection of movement. That is, I detected when there was a movement near one of the windows, and then shifted my focus there to see if indeed the window was now vacant so I could go and buy my ticket. In effect, I intended to use binocular summation.I had to do it more or less consciously, since I had no prior experience of using this feature of binocular vision to achieve some desired result, as opposed to, say, noticing flying birds, where binocular summation may help to notice a flying bird, and then the eyes can track it for some time, but there is no definite goal in mind. as long as we are not hunting the bird.
I had the same feeling of anxiety as I was waiting a little later for the arrival of an elevator. I was the first person who did not fit in the previous elevator, so I was ahead of the line. I again intended to use binocular vision to promptly notice that the elevator has arrived so I can go there before the next person in line starts trying to get ahead of me. I did not verbalize this intention, but this is what I felt, together with a fairly strong sense of anxiety. I guess, in the past it often happened otherwise.
The view from the top was not as impressive as I expected. I was still new. I heard some conversations, and it somewhat annoyed me that people were so matter-of-fact about things that they saw, it was so easy for them to discuss what they saw without any anxiety or any effort to see what they were talking about.
I paid for an audioguide, so I listened to it at various points around the perimeter of the observation deck. As I listened to the audioguide, I did my best to follow along and to see what the audioguide was talking about. I succeeded in most of the cases. Even though there were a few buildings that I couldn't find, overall I was able to follow along. This was not easy, and I was constantly anxious that I will not be able to keep up with the recording and will not locate the building that he was talking about before he switches to the next one, but I mostly did fine. Scanning for a certain building and focusing on various building was a little bit difficult, but the most difficult part was the sense of anxiety.
Of course, finding various buildings is now so much easier for me than it had always been, because of the ability to focus the eyes on a particular building so this building gets highlighted. Also, now that I know and feel that buildings are three-dimensional, it is easier to scan for a certain building, since I know I am supposed to extract a three-dimensional object from the periphery, so the angle at which I am looking is not really important, I can still be scanning for the same thing. Also, tall buildings are noticed automatically, and it is quite clear that tall buildings are taller than the rest.
I put two quarters in the binocle and tried to see the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and other sites on the south. I achieved some success, although my visual system certainly found it difficult to look through the binocle at very large objects several miles away, such as a bridge. I still felt anxiety that I will fail to find things, but it was not too bad.
I think this anxiety was a part of the feeling that I did not notice things as well as other people. presumably because I was not paying attention. You can understand what I am talking about if you re-read my earlier post on peripheral vision, but re-read it in the context of the lack of binocular vision.
I was able to identify certain streets such as Broadway and 5th avenue even without the audio guide. Furthermore, I could tell north from south even without the audio guide. Again, this is much better than how I did during my previous experiences. Binocular focus is only one thing. I think, a deeper issue here is being able to conceptualize a three-dimensional city. If you lack binocular vision, it is difficult to conceptualize the organization of anything in 3-dimensional space, in particular, it is difficult to use maps.
In the past I had only used maps as graphs. That is, I looked at a map and noticed what was near what.
Now I understand that a map is just a handy representation of how things are in three-dimensional space, so I can look at a map, and then visualize the spatial arrangement. I already did it before in the Zoo where I looked at a map, visualized the whole Zoo in 3-space, as it was according to the scheme that they gave me, and then found whatever animals I wanted to see in no time.
Overall, now I was able to find so much more structure in what I saw from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. It was possible to find and/or recognize places that I had seen or visited. However, in this case the city did not look any prettier because of the stereopsis.
As I was waiting in line, I was looking at other people - mostly women, but also just people talking to each other, or not even talking, but standing nearby, being aware of each other. I felt I was neither more nor less than one more person in the line, and I felt that other people were aware of it. That is, I was participating in this social protocol, waiting in line, together with the other people. My past experiences used to be more subjective: waiting in line had felt like me following the protocol by myself. The protocol, that is, the sequence of actions necessary to get to the top of the building. This time, however, I felt I was participating in a social interaction.
Now, as far as observing other people goes, on one side, it became much easier than before. On the other side, now other people can see, where I am looking. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it creates a certain social dynamics: they can look back at you, in different ways. They can make eye contact with you, then both of you decide, what kind of eye contact and how long to hold it, and so on. I am not necessarily talking about women, rather in general about observing other people.
I got close to the beginning of the line and was prepared to go and buy my ticket. There were several windows, but some were without people. I made two steps towards a window and realized that there was no ticket agent there - there were only four agents out of probably six windows. At this moment the next two people in line went ahead of me to get a ticket from another agent who just became available. I felt anxiety that I was not in control of the situation. Then I realized that now I had binocular vision with stereopsis and all other bells and whistles, so I should be able to orient myself in such trivial situations as well as an average person, even though I had failed to reach this standard in the past. I looked at the windows and saw which ones had ticket agents and which were empty. Then I consciously used the detection of movement. That is, I detected when there was a movement near one of the windows, and then shifted my focus there to see if indeed the window was now vacant so I could go and buy my ticket. In effect, I intended to use binocular summation.I had to do it more or less consciously, since I had no prior experience of using this feature of binocular vision to achieve some desired result, as opposed to, say, noticing flying birds, where binocular summation may help to notice a flying bird, and then the eyes can track it for some time, but there is no definite goal in mind. as long as we are not hunting the bird.
I had the same feeling of anxiety as I was waiting a little later for the arrival of an elevator. I was the first person who did not fit in the previous elevator, so I was ahead of the line. I again intended to use binocular vision to promptly notice that the elevator has arrived so I can go there before the next person in line starts trying to get ahead of me. I did not verbalize this intention, but this is what I felt, together with a fairly strong sense of anxiety. I guess, in the past it often happened otherwise.
The view from the top was not as impressive as I expected. I was still new. I heard some conversations, and it somewhat annoyed me that people were so matter-of-fact about things that they saw, it was so easy for them to discuss what they saw without any anxiety or any effort to see what they were talking about.
I paid for an audioguide, so I listened to it at various points around the perimeter of the observation deck. As I listened to the audioguide, I did my best to follow along and to see what the audioguide was talking about. I succeeded in most of the cases. Even though there were a few buildings that I couldn't find, overall I was able to follow along. This was not easy, and I was constantly anxious that I will not be able to keep up with the recording and will not locate the building that he was talking about before he switches to the next one, but I mostly did fine. Scanning for a certain building and focusing on various building was a little bit difficult, but the most difficult part was the sense of anxiety.
Of course, finding various buildings is now so much easier for me than it had always been, because of the ability to focus the eyes on a particular building so this building gets highlighted. Also, now that I know and feel that buildings are three-dimensional, it is easier to scan for a certain building, since I know I am supposed to extract a three-dimensional object from the periphery, so the angle at which I am looking is not really important, I can still be scanning for the same thing. Also, tall buildings are noticed automatically, and it is quite clear that tall buildings are taller than the rest.
I put two quarters in the binocle and tried to see the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and other sites on the south. I achieved some success, although my visual system certainly found it difficult to look through the binocle at very large objects several miles away, such as a bridge. I still felt anxiety that I will fail to find things, but it was not too bad.
I think this anxiety was a part of the feeling that I did not notice things as well as other people. presumably because I was not paying attention. You can understand what I am talking about if you re-read my earlier post on peripheral vision, but re-read it in the context of the lack of binocular vision.
I was able to identify certain streets such as Broadway and 5th avenue even without the audio guide. Furthermore, I could tell north from south even without the audio guide. Again, this is much better than how I did during my previous experiences. Binocular focus is only one thing. I think, a deeper issue here is being able to conceptualize a three-dimensional city. If you lack binocular vision, it is difficult to conceptualize the organization of anything in 3-dimensional space, in particular, it is difficult to use maps.
In the past I had only used maps as graphs. That is, I looked at a map and noticed what was near what.
Now I understand that a map is just a handy representation of how things are in three-dimensional space, so I can look at a map, and then visualize the spatial arrangement. I already did it before in the Zoo where I looked at a map, visualized the whole Zoo in 3-space, as it was according to the scheme that they gave me, and then found whatever animals I wanted to see in no time.
Overall, now I was able to find so much more structure in what I saw from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. It was possible to find and/or recognize places that I had seen or visited. However, in this case the city did not look any prettier because of the stereopsis.
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