Bruce Bridgeman, who studies vision in his academic life, struggled with poor depth perception caused by eyes that pointed outwards for most of his life. After watching the movie "Hugo" in 3-D that all changed.
Bridgeman's eye problems prevented him from seeing in "stereo vision," which is the ability to see one image with both eyes, according to CNN.
Bridgeman went to see the movie "Hugo" in 3-D and noticed something extraordinary. He was able to see the images in greater stereo vision than he had ever experienced. The effect didn't end after Bridgeman took off the 3-D glasses and left the theater, 16 months later he was still able to see depth in the real world.
"Suddenly, things began to jump out at me," said Bridgeman, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
While there is no way to scientifically prove the movie had an effect on the man's vision, the phenomenon could help people suffering from similar conditions. Other experts think the movie simply catered to Bridgeman's unique set of visual problems, and wouldn't work for most people.
"Certainly immersion in a 3-D movie could, if somebody had a marginal vision system, could absolutely improve it," said Paul Harris, associate professor at the Southern College of Optometry in Memphis. "I wouldn't prescribe [a movie]."
Susan Barry, a neurobiologist at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and author of "Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey Into Seeing in Three Dimensions" suffered from similar eye problems. She used a series of procedures taking place over years in order to learn how to point her eyes in the same direction.
"People like me or like Bruce who are cross-eyed, have strabismus, probably have the capacity to see in stereo if you can change your visual habits so as to point the two eyes at the same place at the same time, and bring in correlated input into the brain," she said.
Bridgeman looked into a study done on young cats with misaligned eyes conducted in the 1980s. The study showed most of the cells in the visual cortex of the brain would be activated by only one of the cat's eyes at a time. However, a small group of these cells were activated with both eyes.
Brideman believes some of these cells were awakened in his own brain when he put on the 3-D glasses and watched "Hugo".
"It was sort of serendipitous that I had spent my lifetime studying vision, and then this experience happened, so I could talk about it and maybe understand it in ways that most people wouldn't be able to," he said.
Harris said a 3-D movie could have this effect because it rewards the brain for bringing both eyes into focus.
"The moment he brought his eye in subconsciously, he was like, 'Oh wow, this looks cool,' and then probably maintained the effort," Harris said.
Researchers have suggested creating video games with 3-D information to help people who struggle with eye misalignment.
A few months after the life-changing movie Bridgeman visited an optometrist to test his eyesight. The tests concluded his stereo vision had drastically improved, but was still not within a normal range.
About three to five percent of people are stereo-blind or struggle with stereo deficits.
