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When neuroscientist Susan Barry was fifty years old, she took an
unforgettable trip to Manhattan. As she emerged from the dim light
of the subway into the sunshine, she saw a view of the city that
she had witnessed many times in the past but now saw in an
astonishingly new way. Skyscrapers on street corners appeared to
loom out toward her like the bows of giant ships. Tree branches
projected upward and outward, enclosing and commanding palpable
volumes of space. Leaves created intricate mosaics in 3D. With each
glance, she experienced the deliriously novel sense of immersion in
a three dimensional world.
Barry had been cross-eyed and stereoblind since early infancy.
After half a century of perceiving her surroundings as flat and
compressed, on that day she was seeing Manhattan in stereo depth
for first time in her life. As a neuroscientist, she understood
just how extraordinary this transformation was, not only for
herself but for the scientific understanding of the human brain.
Scientists have long believed that the brain is malleable only
during a "critical period" in early childhood. According to this
theory, Barry's brain had organized itself when she was a baby to
avoid double vision - and there was no way to rewire it as an
adult. But Barry found an optometrist who prescribed a little-known
program of vision therapy; after intensive training, Barry was
ultimately able to accomplish what other scientists and even she
herself had once considered impossible.
A revelatory account of the brain's capacity for change, "Fixing
My Gaze" describes Barry's remarkable journey and celebrates the
joyous pleasure of our senses.
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