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Show VISION (These articles are submitted weekly by your Optometrists of Southern Utah, in cooperation with your local newspaper, in order to better acquaint you with the function and problems of vision). WHAT IS "SEEING?" Seeing is a skill, something that has to be learned, like walking or swimming. The eye itself is only an instrument of vision; sight is a brain process dependent for its correct functions on the normal reaction of the nervous system. WHAT CHANGES HAVE TAKEN PLACE IN "SEEING?" Prehistoric man, being a hunter, developed outdoor distance seeing skills. Poor outdoor vision meant death; only those with good distance vision survived. Man applied ap-plied his distance seeing skills to agriculture. However, during the last few generations we have moved our outdoor out-door visual skills indoors, and required them to function at arm's length in an artificial environment for long hours every day. HOW DO INDIVIDUALS REACT TO THESE CHANGES? The problems of adapting seeing skills to this new environment school, office, industry, military aviation, etc. is solved by individuals in various ways. The fortunate for-tunate ones have no difficulty. They see comfortably and clearly, accurately and with complete comprehension. Others Oth-ers achieve adaptation by sacrificing their clear outdoor seeing skills to permit them to work well at nearpoint. These people develop functional nearsightedness. Still others oth-ers have good farpoint and nearpoint vision, but have a limited span of recognition, and inefficient nearpoint adjustment, ad-justment, resulting in slow reading and low work output. A third group never adapts its visual skills to nearpoint work and is uncomfortable, has headaches, is unable to concentrate. This group avoids nearpoint work whenever possible. It is possible to measure the efficiency of the seeinc skills fusion, stereopsis, accommodative facility, motor adjustment, and speed and span of recognition which make up good vision. It is also possible by the use of training instruments and training lenses to help the individual indi-vidual learn new visual skills or relearn lost ones. This process is called "Visual Training." |