Hello
Welcome to my blog, i hope you and your families are staying safe and adhering to protocols to protect yourselves. Whiles good news continue to spring up across the globe the pandemic is still out there and so i recommend we all continue to protect ourselves accordingly.
So today i want us to take a quick look at depth perception and to answer the question that many have asked and many keep asking; Is Depth Perception Important?
Introduction
So before you jump ahead and say yes obviously it must be important if not why do we have it as a species let's learn about it before. Most of us may not have even thought about depth perception before because is not something that would just prompt you neither does it really cause troubles with vision.
But depth perception is an important component of vision without it one may have lots of difficulties executing their daily tasks or even interpreting visual cues. Imagine the ground looks steeper than it is whenever you have to walk. There is high chance you may end up breaking a bone or two if you should continue walking or you will feel nauseous for just walking.
Depth perception and Depth Cues
When we talk about perceiving depth we may look at it from the point of seeing in 3 dimension or been simply able to tell if one things is further or nearer in reference to another object. Now seeing in 3 dimension falls under the category of something we call stereopsis and this is only possible at near distance and with two functioning eyes. The others may be observed in both binocular and monocular conditions.
As we grow we get accustomed to a way of interpreting depth based on how nature presents it to us. A lot of artist base on this to trick our minds to perceive things differently in their drawings and it works because our brain works by following patterns and grouping items. It is for this same reason why you may read a paragraph having lots of errors but your brain just get the right thing out of it and you keep going.
In Vision Science these are known as depth cues and they include; linear perspective, relative size, texture gradient, overlap, aerial perspective, light and shadow and motion parralax. Our brain understands that light comes from above and darkness or shadow from below with this we are able to tell that a more lighter object or lighter part of an object is above the other. The brain sees coarse objects as closer and finer as further because we can only appreciate the detail of object when they are near. Everything is nice when far.
Using all these cues we are able to judge or ascertain if something is closer or farther. Before we move on to talk about the importance of depth perception i want us to do this to appreciate the beauty of stereopsis otherwise known as 3D vision. Hold two ball point pens close to you and with one eye close try to let the tips meet, now try with both eyes opened. What did you observe?
Importance of Depth Perception
So yes, you were right if you jump into conclusion to say depth perception is important but can you tell exactly how it helps us? Depth perception helps us to drive and it definitely keeps us from crashing. Sometimes i am amazed at how good some drivers are that there are able to just judge right and makes some narrow turns and escapes. We can attribute this skill to depth perception and perhaps experience?
You need depth perception to climb those stairs and you definitely need them to get down. You need perception to tell you the cup you are filling is already full. You need depth perception to tell you that the incoming vehicles is far enough for you to safely cross that road.
Conclusion
Am certain now you have realized that depth perception applies to every single aspect of your life just as you need your visual acuity to see well. Well point made, thanks for reading and have a great week ahead. Happy New Month to all STEM enthusiasts.
Thanks for reading and have a great day, Special thanks to my mentors and supporters @mcsamm, @tj4real, @armandosodano, @delilhavores, @gentleshaid, @agmoore. For further reading;
https://www.aao.org/eye-health/anatomy/depth-perception
https://www.healthline.com/health/eye-health/depth-perception
https://study.com/academy/lesson/depth-perception.html
https://www.pointgreyeyecare.com/2015/09/28/the-importance-of-depth-perception/
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Hello @nattybongo,
Another interesting blog. From reading the beginning of this blog it seems that depth perception is not just innate but that our brains 'learn' to read clues. Is this correct? Also, I'm sure there must be pathologies affecting depth perception specifically. Is this true? And there must be some people with better depth perception than others...perhaps airplane pilots :)
Thank you for this interesting read. And yes, stay safe also.
Hello @agmoore, it is always a pleasure to hear from you, I hope all is well at your end? So to your first question the answer is yes depth perception is not just innate our brain learn to perceive depth perception from clues and brain relies on this information as we grow which is why illusions are able to work on us. There are also conditions that may affect our depth perception these may not necessarily be pathologies but they all do a brain correlation. For instance, refractive errors, amblyopia and binocular Vision anomalies such as strabismus can cause one to have depth perception problems and this can be explained theoretically as the brain no been able to process the dissimilar stimuli been sent to it or it not been able to fuse dissimilar images. Pathological problems than affect depth perception are mostly neuropathic.
To your last question, some people may be considered to have better depth perception but in this instance too we can attribute it to their training or their line of work. Because these individuals have reprogrammed themselves such that they are better adjudicators go distance and depth. The same way a keyboardist after learning a practice developed his senses to learn easily pick up where each key is and can play with the eyes closed so does the pilot or sniper after their training is able to make better judgment of these distances required in their field.
I hope this helps, thanks once again for reading and I hope you have great week☺️
Thank you, I am well and so is my family. And thank you for that thorough response. Very interesting and informative...almost as good as your blog :)
Health to you and your family.
Best wishes,
AG