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?

Question

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?

In: 3602

Answer 1

You can’t, not really. However, your brain will try to guess based on your experiences, shape, shadows, size… It’s the same as when you’re watching a movie: there’s no depth, but you can still tell that a building in the background is farther than the person speaking.

Try this: cover one of your eyes with an eye patch (pice of cloth for example). Stay that way for a bit, then try to reach for things (small, suspended ones worked well in my experience). You’ll see that while you have a general idea of how far things are, but trying to tell where they actually are in order to tell your hands where to go is a different matter.