P3D Re: Stereo Dreaming

[boris@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Boris Starosta)]

Bruce Springsteen, in private communication:

>I'm with you Boris, that I can't really "do" stereo images in my head,
>but I'm not sure I do flat mental pictures all that well either - so I
>may be a bad case.  I do know that in some way I am getting better in

I do consider myself having a very good visual memory.  In caving with a
particular friend of mine, we always become aware of our individual
strengths regarding navigation.  I can recognize waypoints (forks or
intersections that have been passed before) in the appearance and
organization of boulders, rocks, stalagtites, etc...   which can help in
getting us out quickly after a long day, and he is much better at overall
general directions in the cave (even without a compass, which we've rarely
used), which is useful if we are lost in some new section of cave.  So the
visual memory thing is a definite trait that I have and he does not.

Also in driving some routes that we've both done before (at high speed
sometimes - I was younger then) my visual memory can really help.  I
remember passengering with him at one point, returning from a cave
expedition - and he was approaching a rise in the road, beyond which lay a
fine cow pasture beyond the hidden and rather sharp bend in the road.  At
the last minute (second?), I reminded him of the turn beyond the rise, and
we narrowly escaped our own grass-grazing cud-chewing excursion.  Funny,
because we had both driven that stretch many times.

Now that I am thinking again, remembering caves, which have a LOT of depth
(often too much for my nerves), I can definitely remember sensations of
depth along with visual memory.  But I would not call these
stereoscopically recalled images.  The depth is simply "known" not
perceived.

There was a thread in P3D earlier this year regarding early work done with
random dot stereograms and the visual memories of young children.  The
claim was that left and right eye views of these patterns, given to kids
non contemporaneously, could later be fused in memory, with some kids
identifying the depth image encoded in the stereogram.  Now THAT's a
photographic memory!  That might be worth another search in the P3D
archives...

Boris  (currently very active and needy on sell-3d.  Check it out!)



Boris Starosta            boris@xxxxxxxxxxxx
                          http://www.starosta.com
usa 804 979 3930          http://www.starosta.com/3dshowcase



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