There is a point to the recent 'Eyes Wide Open' question. It's a bit off topic a theory, how many of you use just one particular eye to compose a picture? has anyone tried composing with there wrong eye lately?

The reason behind asking what may seem to be a obtuse question is that I recently tried it. My left eye is stronger than my right eye, but it's the right eye that does all the work. The reason I tried it was because of a conversation I had with two friends of Chinese descent. Both are fluent Chinese and English speakers, I asked them 'In which language do they dream?' it was a question they'd never thought of or even considered. One dreamt in Chinese and one in English.

So back to this 'Eyes Wide Open' is it posssible that one eye can be more creative than the other? Most people have a dominent left eye but most people use their right eye to focus and compose...

Before you flame me for an alcohol induced question please have a think about it... I know I have for years!

p.s. I had my 'Flex SL back yesterday from a service and my right eye is very happy

-- Philip Woodcock (phil@pushbar.demon.co.uk), January 25, 2002

Answers

Most people do not have a dominant left eye. Most people are right- handed, right-footed and right-eyed oweing to dominance of their brain's left hemisphere. Exceptions do exist in large numbers (right- handers with dominant left eyes and/or left feet)but they aren't the majority. The data is much less clear for left-handers, mainly because of societal influences that force left-handers to develop right-side skills from an early age. I'm in the smallest group of all, 100% ambi--hands, feet and eyes, was in constant demand by the neuroscience department when I was in college, so I picked up a lot of stats from those guys.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), January 25, 2002.

I understand that lefties tend to be more creative on average than right-handed folks, so I'd also expect people who favor their left eyes to be more creative.

-- Chris Chen (Washington, DC) (furcafe@NOSPAMcris.com), January 25, 2002.

Another advantage of being left-eyed is that if you use an auxiliary finder on your M, you won't produce nose prints on the regular finder.

Unfortunately, I'm more right-eyed, and have to think about not sticking my nose in that little hole.

Either way, however, my guess would be that the creative part takes place in the same chunk of the brain, regardless of the eye being used.

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), January 25, 2002.

my girlfriend is one of these rare persons who cannot close her left eye alone. the right one is no problem. it's probably genetical. her father is a hunter and has the same problem. weird, isn't it? but i still love her...

-- stefan randlkofer (geesbert@yahoo.com), January 25, 2002.

DEFINATELY OT...

Left-handers trivia:

1) We are smarter by an average of 15 IQ points when compared the the RH population.

2) We are more creative, generally speaking.

3) Almost 50% of US presidents and US actors have been LH.

4) LH people represent approximately 15% of the overall population.

5) LH have a shorter average life-span than RH. This is primarily due to the fact that it is a RH world, and hence a higher percentage of LH fall victim to accidents using equipment designed for RH people.

6) Historically, being LH has been discouraged. The French went so far as to call it "gauche". This is primarily a carry-over from the crusades, where a LH swordsman could not as adequately protect their heart with their shield, and hence were slaughtered at higher a rate on the battlefields than a RH. This fact gave rise to the theory as to why today only 15% of the population is LH (geneticists tell us it should be 50%), and why that 15% is slightly more intelligent than the norm.

:) Cheers,

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), January 25, 2002.

One should use one eye not only for composing pictures, but also in looking at photo. Because the camera use only one eye(lens) to take picture, hence using one eye to compose picture and look at picture is the logical way.

Further, one eye vision makes picture looks more like 3D

Renaissance painter Leonardo da Vinci pointed out the advantage of using one eye in composing painting

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), January 25, 2002.

Actually, In latin, the word for left is 'Sinis' from where we have "Sinister" and the word for right was (I think) 'Diris' from where we have "Direction"... I think thats right... er, correct. PS

-- Phillip Silitschanu (speedin_saab@hotmail.com), January 25, 2002.

There is a further disadvantage to being right handed Jack.

...you can still trigger the shutter release button on your M6 (which happens to be resting on the top of your steering wheel) while travelling at a metric rate of 120 km/h. Oh, oh... here comes the guardrail!!! Great bokeh though!

;-)

-- John (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), January 26, 2002.

Has anyone noticed that often the second son in a family is left handed?

-- Ian MacEachern (iwmac@sympatico.ca), January 26, 2002.

Eeeeer....No.

-- Craig (craigsmith@hotmail.com), January 26, 2002.

My father, who is left-handed, always used his right eye for composing a picture, focussing, etc., so I used my right eye as well when I started into photography When I came across thi s thread in Photo.net, I vaguely remembered my left-eye dominance, tried... and had to re-assess all processing cost calculations because the number of shots worth keeping per roll increased. The funny side: which eye is dominant, should be completely irrelevant because approx. 50 per cent of one side's visual signals end up in the same side's visual cortex due to the crossing--or non-crossing--in the Chiasma opticum.

Regarding ergonomics of the M: lefthandedness was considered a physical handicap at best, and a sign of diabolic freakiness quite often, until about thirty years ago in Europe; and it was literally beaten out of children in kindergarten or school. As left-handed adults "did not exist" (and children weren't taken seriously), ergonomics were, err, taking sides.

The Latin word for 'left' is sinister, 'right' is dexterus. Guess where dexterity came from?

-- Oliver Schrinner (piraya@hispavista.com), January 28, 2002.

And Dexter's Lab.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), January 28, 2002.

I am left-handed for writing but right-handed for almost everything else. My right eye is dominant and I carry out all activities requiring sighting, such as photography and shooting, right-handedly. I couldn't throw a dart, for instance, with any accuracy using my left hand and I fire a rifle or pistol right-handedly; I couldn't imagine doing so left-handedly.

Incidentally, I understand that the custom of shaking hands, using the right hand, was developed by the Romans to show that one was unarmed. The word 'sinister' (Latin for 'left') is used today to mean treacherous or menacing but arose from the trick of holding a weapon in the left hand which shaking with the right hand.

-- Ray Moth (ray_moth@yahoo.com), January 28, 2002.

I agree that left handed people trend to be more creative that RH's just because we need to adapt to a RH world, we see the world from another perspective , and this make us special people. I have an IQ of 151 wich according to charts is very respectable, all the persons that I know that are LH are very bright and creative. SS*.

-- Servando Sepulveda Rujana (ghst007ghst@netscape.net), March 26, 2002.

It is my understanding that each eye has its field of view split down the middle. The view to the right, from both eyes, goes to the left hemisphere and the view to the left goes to the right hemisphere. For a diagram see:

http://www.mit.edu/people/jocelyns/bcs9011/schiller1.pdf

Or any good biology/psychology/anatomy... text.

To see with one half-brain one would have to block half the visual field in each eye. Some electrical tape on the eyeglasses should work.

I suppose one could analyze photographs and compare the composition on the right with the composition on the left.

"Eyes half shut" would be more like it, but one would have to be wall-eyed and have eyelids that closed from the sides.

-- Nicholas O. Lindan (nolindan@ix.netcom.com), March 26, 2002.

"The funny side: which eye is dominant, should be completely irrelevant because approx. 50 per cent of one side's visual signals end up in the same side's visual cortex due to the crossing--or non- crossing--in the Chiasma opticum."

. . . Absolutely true. Oliver, this is a really good point. I never thought about it, but it does mean that left- vs. right-eyedness can't be explained by hemispheric dominance alone. I wonder if the oculomotor muscles are part of the explanation. I think they are more conventionally tied to their respective opposite hemispheres.

Jack: "1) We are smarter by an average of 15 IQ points when compared the the RH population."

. . . er, could you cite your reference? I left my copy of Matarazzo/Wechsler at the office, so I can't look it up right now. Funny, I don't remember this statistic . . .

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), March 26, 2002.