If depth perception works because the brain checks the difference in the position of the object between the two eyes and concludes how far away it is, how can we still see depth when one eye is closed?
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Interesting test to give yourself. *CAN* you see depth with one eye closed? Cover one of your eyes and try to consistently touch the same spot on your phone or a desk top. Change the distance and see how often you are surprised when you contact the desk or where you touch. Try changing between moving your hand in from the side to touch the spot vs lining your hand up with your eye first and pushing out to touch the spot. Even when you are looking at something you remember very well at a distance you are used to it can be difficult to judge. And remember you brain does keep track subconsciously, if you really want to test it. Try doing this somewhere you aren’t familiar with 3d layout, and try not to survey with both eyes open first
And extension of this test is to find a place where you can see for miles. How well can you judge distance of objects more than 100 yards/meters away without using references? The further away an object is the less our depth vision works except in very general applications like “close” and “far”. It takes a trained eye and or decent references near an object to judge distance.
You may be able to infer general distance with one eye closed. Your brain is great at interpretation of color and shadow gradients to determine a 3d shape. However detailed depth can be very hard and if you close an eye before looking at something so you don’t have remembered depth data you might be surprised how hard it is to interpret what you are seeing for distance.
I think you’ll find you’ve got a slightly flawed question. Yes we can infer some limited distance with one eye, especially at longer ranges where our eyes are close enough together they don’t offer much parallax change (the difference in shape between two views offer of an object that we use to infer distance). But closer in. You do actually need both eyes for consistent and accurate depth vision, or more specifically, the accuracy needed becomes significant compared to what is generally needed with viewing distant objects. You can manufacture depth vision by moving you head around with one eye closed. But the depth awareness fades quickly when you stop moving your head.
Source: I’m a pilot and prior military. I’ve had a lot of training and practice with judging distances and speeds.
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