Is there even just a singular focus? Normally, both of a persons eyes are facing a singular direction which makes a large area of shared vision between the eyes (which allows a focus point anywhere in that field of vision). But with eyes which are pointed in a different direction this seems less likely. Does anyone have more info?
I have one normal eye and one eye that has no lens, so I only see vague shapes and colors in that eye.
There's no shared focus, per se. (The bad eye literally can't focus at all)
I don't typically "pay attention" to the bad eye. Usually, they are "separate" and I ignore the bad eye. Sometimes I have really funny lapses in depth perception. Driving at night when the road is wet (and there are lots of weird reflections) is particularly tough. I can't see 3D movies... mostly. Sometimes that magical 3D effect kicks in for a second or two. When it happens, it's pretty cool. Then it goes away. haha.
But, my brain does seem to assemble information from both eyes somehow. I can actually play most sports pretty well. I'm pretty decent at softball and tennis.
I also avoided a serious car accident once thanks to that shitty eye. Was nearly broadsided right in the driver's door by somebody on my "blind" side, but that eye alerted me to an oncoming car (jackass running a red light) approaching at fairly high speed. She sheared my front bumper clean off (instead of plowing into my door, possibly killing me because it was a tiny little sports car with little side impact protection) because I hit the brakes at the last fraction of a second.
I would wager that the conjoined twins' experience may be something like this. (Obviously, with more eyes involved)
I'm flattered! I don't have much of a web presence these days but feel free to use my contact info in my profile or reply here if you have any questions.
As far as I know my experiences are fairly typical for people in my situation though; I'm not sure I have anything unique to say. =)
I often wonder how birda do this (because I have one at home). Their eyes are on the side of their head, pointing in almost completely opposite directions.
Yet they’re able to accurately land on things and generally exhibit behavior that indicates they have pretty good 3D vision. Then again my bird often sticks his foot out to step on my finger when the finger is still an inch away. So maybe not as good at depth perception as humans.
strabismic people develop active mechanisms to inhibit the opposite eye to avoid / reduce double vision. in the end no matter how many eyes, what matters to the brain is to see something useful, so it will try to learn to suppress confusing information.
