This is the conclusion of a new scientific study

Apr 30, 2010 14:59 GMT  ·  By
Test subjects told they could see remarkably well experienced a surge in their actual visual abilities, a new study finds
   Test subjects told they could see remarkably well experienced a surge in their actual visual abilities, a new study finds

Recently, researchers at the Harvard University proposed a new method of boosting vision in average individuals that admittedly steps a bit out of regular guidelines. According to Ellen Langer, a psychologist at the university, it could be that thinking differently about vision could actually help people develop keener eyesight, without the need for external interventions such as surgeries or drugs. In a series of experiments the researcher and her team conducted, participants experienced improved vision when they were told by scientists they could see very well, Wired reports.

The team hypothesizes that the effect is direct, in the sense that telling test subject they could see better did not only motivate them to pay more attention to what they were looking at, or made them more focused. Expectations that they could see actually seemed to enhance their level of vision clarity, the Harvard group writes in a paper accompanying the findings, which appears in the April issue of the esteemed journal Psychological Science.

For many years, neuroscientists and psychologists have been saying that there is much more to vision than simply relaying information from the eyes to the visual processing area of the cortex. One “extra” mechanism is a person's ability to assume. Throughout our lives, our brains get accustomed to seeing specific things only in specific conditions. Over time, when we are exposed to the same type of situations, we tend to perceive those things we expect to be there better than we would otherwise. These assumptions are therefore considered to be based primarily on our past experiences.

But a side-effect of this is the fact that we begin to disconsider familiar scenes, which means that unusual things, people or places that appear in them generally escape our conscious mind until someone points them out. In one of the experiments, people reported increased difficulty in reading eye charts that had the largest letters at the bottom. This, the team believes, happened because eye charts are generally arranged the other way around, with the smaller letter at the bottom of the sheet. People therefore expected to see them there, and knew they shouldn't be able to see them.

The group says that the exercises they proposed to test subjects for the new study may not work for everyone. Langer explains that one of the main reason such training may be effective is “because they prime the belief that exercise improves vision.”