It’s a little hard to understand at first how the movie Hugo changed a man’s stereoblindness but it did happen. Bruce Bridgeman, a 67-year old neurosurgeon, went to see the movie Hugo with his wife in 3D at the theater, thinking that it wouldn’t be anything special. What he didn’t expect was that his condition of stereoblindness would be forever cured after he put on the special glasses and experienced the movie in a way that 2D might not have given him. After walking out of the theater he found that the condition he’d lived with for so long was cured, meaning he could finally see the world around him in greater depth than he’d ever known before.
It might sound fairly impossible to think that a person could go through life without being able to tell how far away something is, but the truth of it is that stereoblindness does affect about 5 to 10 percent of the population, and it’s a very real problem. Scientists have discovered that there are specialized neurons in the visual cortex that have to do specifically with the function of being able to tell just how far away certain objects are from one another. Depth perception is quite important in many, if not all, facets of life and as a neurosurgeon one can only imagine how Bridgeman must have gotten along throughout his life without any serious mistakes.
Bridgeman admittedly could see nothing in 3D until the experience at the theater that somehow woke something up in his visual cortex, allowing him to finally bring his focus front and center. Up until that point he’d been able to focus each eye on a different location in front of him, which didn’t allow his field of vision to overlap. What happens when we look at things with one eye and then the next, keeping the opposite eye closed, is that we get a slightly different image with each eye. When we look at those same images with both eyes our brain is forced to compile the images and deduce just what should remain in the forefront as the main focus and what should be construed as the background. In other words our brain and sense of depth perception allow us to realize the world in a three-dimensional view, rather than just seeing everything in front of us as part of the landscape.
The idea that anyone would have to live their lives without understanding how far away something was from another object is kind of disconcerting since doing anything that requires a sense of depth perception, which includes a lot, would be quite difficult. Getting a driver’s license doesn’t even require that a person prove that they have good depth perception, though thankfully Bridgeman stated that he’s never had an accident. He did go on to say that his family and friends were a bit pensive when he got behind the wheel. This is only fitting since if you happen to see the cars in front of you as just a part of the overall landscape there’s reason to be worried.
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