Brock, Bubbles, video

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Morale is high. The distant bead can be a bit of a bugger.  But getting to it is becoming easier, and I'm noticing significantly lower suppression, particularly on the close-up beads.  Things are becoming more vivid.  The distant bead is getting easier to notice both sides--the distant X.

Brock and Bubbles

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Things are looking up.  As you can see, I've got my highest score yet just today.  It wasn't long ago that 12000 was my highest score.  But that was when I was doing Bubbles for 30 minutes instead of ten minutes.  

I said earlier that I am able to get the X every time with the Brock String for every bead, although that's a little bit of a simplification.  There is some suppression, which means that it's not always an X,  Sometimes I get a bit of a Y, especially when fixating on the bead in the distance.  But that seems to be getting better.   

I do have a head tilt when doing the Brock String, although that's going down a bit.  Things are getting more comfortable and natural. I'm getting more control when jumping from very close to distance.  Jumping back and forth takes quite a bit of work although it's not fatiguing any longer.  It's weird, it almost seems as though I can feel my lens muscles doing work as I jump to distance.  Also, the drifting of the lazy eye is lessening.  It's becoming much more stable and under my control.  Pasquale suggested that I set up tripod in order to film my eyes as I do the workout to make sure that my eyes are doing the right things.  I'm sure that they're diverging and converging, but it might be a good idea to get a good visual on what's really going on.  

This current stage that I'm in appears to be a long ramp, one in which a huge amount of progress is made.  So I'm happy to stay here and see where it takes me.  

More Bubbles and Brock String

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Wow, I've seen a lot of improvement in the past week.  Not so much with the Bubbles game, but with the Brock String.  I'm not sure there are enough data to identify progress in the Bubbles scores.  You might see a very slight incline if you try to draw a straight line.  The 18th was just a crazy day.  For some reason I just kept making the right guesses again and again, staying in the higher levels.

I just completed my exercises for the day and am finding that I'm consistently better at the Brock String.  It's almost easy now.  My control isn't perfect, but it sure feels like it's getting there.  I get the X every time from bead to bead.  A few weeks ago I would get tired after 20-30 seconds.  Now I don't get tired at all--even after 10 minutes.

Dr. Tran suggested that I do jumps from up close to distance while standing up.  He also suggests that I do the Brock String such that I am looking upward at the string and beads.  So I had to move the Brock String and tie it to some cabinets so I could look up at it while standing.  That's what I've been practicing.  Close, distance, close, distance.  I've also been taking care to look through my acrylic target contraption.  I suspect that is exercising my binocular neurons so they get close-up stereo cues (drawn-in concentric circles) while I'm looking in the distant beads.

I'm going to have to figure out some ways to load the exercise to make it more challenging.  I'll probably ask Doctor Tran soon.  I do expect the Bubbles scores to increase very dramatically in the coming months.

Critical period

This entry might sound a little weird, because it was originally an email that I wrote to Dr. Tran, who asked me to write about what I think about the 'critical period'.  But then I kept writing, and decided that it was long enough for a blog.

There are a few things I can say about it from first-hand experience: stereopsis recovery is difficult as hell for me, as an adult.  I can't say what it's like as a child because I knew nothing about vision therapy as a child.

The 'critical period' is something that's come up quite a lot in DIY Vision Therapy.

The knowledge that brain malleability decreases with age is not new. What seems to be new is the emphasis that brain plasticity is always available, even in old age. That's why Sue Barry's Fixing My Gaze was such a surprising book to so many people: that someone 50 years of age--well beyond the critical period--could use her available plasticity to restore full vision.

It's a good book, and it's great that it inspires hope in many, but I also sort of hoped that perhaps she expressed exactly how difficult stereopsis recovery can be for adults. There's a tendency for scientists to overemphasize their findings. So there's a lot of new literature about neuroplasticity in old age, and as a result there's almost a dismissal of the critical period, which in my estimation is real. I think the book made many adults realize 'hey, I think I have that.' and then they try fixing their vision, and only then do they realize how challenging it is.

I've even had conversations with VTs in my group about this. You could ask them 'Do you notice whether it's easier for children to fix their vision?' The invariable answer is that it's much easier for children to fix their vision. One VT said that they fix their vision without even trying. It just takes very gentle nudging at those early ages. It's sort of like when they used the stars to navigate ships. Any small miscalculation can have giant consequences later on. They might land on an entirely different continent. If some small intervention isn't made when the child is still brand new, then the consequences can be rather giant later. He might have severely downgraded vision for the rest of his life as result.

I dated a woman for a while who had a three year old with strabismus. They were going through their options and she had been thinking about giving him surgery. I advised against it and recommended vision therapy or anything else first. I met the kid and even had him try playing Ring Runner with my DK2 (it's too much for a three year old). Fortunately the doctors gave him extra-strength prescription glasses. When he had them off, he said he could see three of me, and when he put them on, he saw one of me. She said that she never had to tell him to use the glasses. He would always automatically use them.  I suggested that she do some tracking exercises to make sure his eyes diverge and converge correctly. After a few weeks of using these new glasses, she informed me that he was able to pass the Butterfly Test--some test for gauging stereoscopy. So he never even had to do vision therapy. He just got proper early intervention and as a result he's going to be able to completely avoid the problems that so many adults later would have. Lucky kid.

So that's about where I am in regard to the critical period. It's definitely a real thing. Vision therapy is much harder for adults, but it is not impossible. With the right guidance and the right amount of dedication and understanding it can be done.

I've heard James talk a bit about the critical period in a podcast. He said he thinks part of the potential of VR HMDs is that they are able to provide a level of stimulation that's very difficult to match in the real world. So even if you have low plasticity compared to, say, a child, the stimulus-power of the DK2, for instance, can sort of overcome that decreased plasticity and allow for changes anyway.

A possible confounding factor that I sort of doubt anyone really considers is genetic variability between people. There is an incredible amount of genetic diversity between people. There is incredible potential for people to be different from one another. MLB baseball players for instance--are genetic mutants. They, on average, have 20/12 acuity!

Susan Barry is a neuroscientist from Princeton! She has a good brain--a brain that's probably not exclusively good for thinking--but rather, generally good. Good brains are caused by genes because genes create brains. Unfortunately there are many people out there with 9-volt brains. I am positive that her good brain has had some influence on her ability to recover stereopsis as quickly as she did.

That's in a nutshell what I think about the critical period. The critical period is real. Neuroplasticity is real. Vision therapy is difficult for adults almost without exception. If you're an adult and you want to recover full vision, it's going to be a huge pain in the ass, but it can be done. There are all kinds of confounding factors like genetic variability which mean that vision therapy is going produce different results for different people. I am hopeful that VR HMDs and other technologies will help enable us to change our visual systems, perhaps by pegging our old recalcitrant brains with supernormal levels of stimulation to convince them to see things differently.

Sincerely,
Andrew

Brock String is an interesting device

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You can see there I had a really good day on the 18th.  Couple of things I'm noticing with the Brock String.  I get tired really quickly.  I can do the Brock String really well for the first 20-30 seconds.  But then I almost immediately get tired, and then my ability to shift from bead to bead becomes more sticky and less controlled.  Another thing I notice is that I can fuse and accommodate for each eye very well for the first 20-30 seconds as well.  After I get tired and things become sticky, I notice that simultaneous accommodation becomes harder.  Tomorrow I might try tDCS with Brock String to see whether that gives my visual system more energy so that I don't get tired as quickly.  But I have noticed that it takes more and more time for me to get tired with practice.