Oxyopia Abstract

July 23, 2009
Thursday, 4:00 PM
100 Minor Hall

Susan Barry, PhD
Professor of Biological Sciences, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA
Host: Dennis Levi

Title

Fixing My Gaze: Acquiring Stereovision in Adult Life

Abstract

I developed a constant esotropia in early infancy. Despite three surgeries at twenty-eight months, forty months, and seven years, I continued to alternate fixation and was stereoblind. At age forty-eight, I consulted a developmental optometrist who prescribed for me a program of optometric vision therapy that taught me how to aim both eyes simultaneously at the same point in space. The therapy was enormously effective: I developed stereopsis, a much greater awareness of my peripheral visual field, and a new worldview that I could not have predicted or imagined. In this seminar, I will discuss the natural history of infantile esotropia, describe how the therapy allowed me to develop stereovision long after the critical period, and speculate on the wiring changes that occurred in my brain. Much of this information is described in my recently published book, Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey into Seeing in Three Dimensions.

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