How can you determine your dominant eye?

[sfleinen]

That is simply incorrect.

One of the ways near sighted vision is often corrected is called monovision. In cases where correction is required both at a distance and close-up (for reading) a common alternative to bifocal lenses is monovision. Typically the dominant eye is corrected for vision at a distance and the non-dominant eye for close-up vision. There are a plethora of simple tests available to determine which is dominant.

I have been using monovision correction for years. The optician checks ocular dominance by having me look at something then covering first one eye then the other with a paddle. When the dominant eye is covered, the object appears to move from the location it was at with both eyes uncovered or just the dominant eye uncovered.

Determining ocular dominance is a well understood process.

You took something out of context of my post and snipped the rest. You should've seen and read this part:

[...] Unless he/she gave you an MRI and studied your brainwaves, he/she would not be able to tell you about your mental pathway "preference" unless a "preference test" (like that which was already proposed above) was performed. Even though the number of nerve contact/synapse points from each eye's optic nerve to the brain may be different between each eye, the mental "pathway preference" is actually "software" and can be rewritten.
[...]

That means, without YOUR input, the optician can't tell, by analyzing the eyes alone, which is your "dominant" eye. It's not like the "dominant" eye is different from the other somehow, nor are there "telltale" physical signs that say which eye is dominant.

Yes, ocular dominance is known and well understood by the professionals. It is not well understood by the average joe/jane, who think ocular dominance means the eyes themselves are somehow different.

-Sean

 

[JoeW]

Sean, Did you try my little test in posts 14 and 15. Eye dominance is a fact and I disagree with Jude. We should know what effects our pool playing to improve it.

Try the test and see for yourself.

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

Sean, Did you try my little test in posts 14 and 15. Eye dominance is a fact and I disagree with Jude. We should know what effects our pool playing to improve it.

Try the test and see for yourself.

Joe, if you want to discuss it here and now, I'm fine with that. What I mean is, I don't advocate people thinking about eye-dominance when they're competing. It's valuable information from an analytical standpoint. Once you screw your cue together and the intention is only to win, you shouldn't think about this stuff.

 

[sfleinen]

Sean, Did you try my little test in posts 14 and 15. Eye dominance is a fact and I disagree with Jude. We should know what effects our pool playing to improve it.

Try the test and see for yourself.

Joe:

Yes, I did -- thank you for that. My results were that I viewed the objects with both eyes. If I tried to "force" unveiling a dominance (e.g. like preferring the left eye or the right eye), I actually felt like one of my eyes was being blocked-out, like it was being "discluded" from participating.

If I try the same test where I take a piece of cardboard, cut a one-inch hole in it, hold that piece of cardboard out in front of me at arm's length, focus on an object through that hole, and then gradually pull that cardboard to my face (all the while focusing on that remote object), I find there's a point at which, due to the spacing between my eyes, I can no longer "see" the object through the one-inch hole anymore. Of course, if I then move the cardboard sideways slightly so that either the left or right eye regains line-of-sight through the hole, I can then pull the cardboard all the way to my face, but I do get that feeling of "having one eye blocked" if I do that.

So when attempting eye "dominance" tests, I fail them miserably every time. For all intents and purposes, I have no dominant eye.

-Sean

 

[BasementDweller]

...
Overlap your thumbs then overlap you first fingers and look through the one inch hole created at a spot about the size of the contact point on a cue ball that is three feet away. Now choose a second object about six feet from the first object and line the two objects up while looking through the hole. This is similar to aiming a pool shot. Place the lined up objects in the center of this one inch hole made by your fingers. Close one eye then close the other eye and you will probably find that only one of your eyes sees the target line. unlike a rifleman you will also find that your eye is not on this line of aim. *

This will unequivocally demonstrate that eye dominance is a problem under some circumstances, such as aiming a pool shot. Apparently your brain is compensating by seeing and feeling a straight line from the off angle of your dominant eye. Notice that you are also “feeling” this line of aim because you cannot see the back of the cue stick.
...

I understand the test and how it applies to pool. What I don't understand is how does it "unequivocally demonstrate that eye dominance is a problem under some circumstances, such as aiming a pool shot"?

Aligning a shot seems like it would just be a natural part of the game, not something I would have to ever think about. In the test that you suggested, once I had everything in alignment I closed my dominant eye (my right eye) then everything went out of alignment. In pool if this happened, I certainly wouldn't shoot the shot since I would recognize that I wasn't aligned properly. When I did your test with my dominant eye closed I just moved my head until everything came back into alignment. Why wouldn't I just do the same when I was shooting pool?

I've never quite understood the eye-dominance stuff but I haven't completely written it off.

 

[JoeW]

Joe, if you want to discuss it here and now, I'm fine with that. What I mean is, I don't advocate people thinking about eye-dominance when they're competing. It's valuable information from an analytical standpoint. Once you screw your cue together and the intention is only to win, you shouldn't think about this stuff.

I very much agree with this statement.

From an analytical point of view the test shows that for most of us (not to include Sean ) eye dominance is part of what the brain uses to calculate a shot. I will finish this post using Word to get it right. Back in a minnute.

 

[JoeW]

The practical significance of eye dominance is the ability to improve one’s sighting during training and practice.

After making a determination of how much one eye dominates the field of view the player can also observe how far off the line of aim the dominant eye is in the horizontal field. This information can be used to train the head placement and eye position relative to the stick for optimal alignment especially relative to the back hand. This is of course a training program for optimal placement and consistency in aiming. One “knows” where the head, eye and foot should be for their particular brain.

There is little that can be down for vertical parallax correction except to be aware of it and to watch the contact point on the OB as one bends over.

I think that dominant eye knowledge also emphasizes the need to walk into the shot and place the foot in the best position for complete alignment. Here to it is a training problem.

As Jude notes, once these alignment procedures have been placed into subconscious memory then they should be forgotten by the conscious mind during play.

We teach ourselves to balance on the bike but then forget about balance to get good at bicycle riding

 

[Mikjary]

My own experience, or lack there of, with eye dominance makes me agree with several of the previous posters. I have had a terrible time figuring out which eye is dominant over the years due to Jude's point of the dominant eye switching as we do tasks.

If I approach a shot looking at it with my left eye, it will powerfully take over as the dominant eye. I say powerfully because when I find this happening (I'm right eye dominant), I can get up from the shot, walk away, come back from a completely different direction and my brain will still want to line up the shot using my left eye.

I have to approach shots in a manner that allows my right eye to be in charge. When I consistently do this I can run 100 balls. One loss of concentration and I start missing badly until I can reset my psyche. Bipolar, schizo...whatever. You get the idea.

There definitely is a huge advantage to finding your dominant eye if you have one. Knowingly or unknowingly. The blended perception is used in many aiming systems. The stick aiming system relies heavily on using both eyes to aim, but not on straight in shots. The blended picture from both eyes give the shooter a completely different picture than using just a dominant eye for each shot.

Best,
Mike

 

[JoeW]

I understand the test and how it applies to pool. What I don't understand is how does it "unequivocally demonstrate that eye dominance is a problem under some circumstances, such as aiming a pool shot"?

Aligning a shot seems like it would just be a natural part of the game, not something I would have to ever think about. In the test that you suggested, once I had everything in alignment I closed my dominant eye (my right eye) then everything went out of alignment. In pool if this happened, I certainly wouldn't shoot the shot since I would recognize that I wasn't aligned properly. When I did your test with my dominant eye closed I just moved my head until everything came back into alignment. Why wouldn't I just do the same when I was shooting pool?

I've never quite understood the eye-dominance stuff but I haven't completely written it off.

After conducting the test described you will find that the dominant eye is not on the straight line from the back hand to the contact point on the OB. This need for parallax correction is very real. For those of us who have not reached Pro status this probably contributes to a lack of consistency in head and eye placements for some shots, especially when adjustments are made for English etc.

 

[sfleinen]

I very much agree with this statement.

From an analytical point of view the test shows that for most of us (not to include Sean ) eye dominance is part of what the brain uses to calculate a shot. I will finish this post using Word to get it right. Back in a minnute.

Joe:

I *do* get what you're saying, please believe me. I *do* agree that there are folks who naturally prefer sighting with either one eye, or have a vision center that is not truly the center of their face (i.e. the bridge of the nose). Just look around at the pros that sight with one eye or prefer one eye -- you already mentioned one (Niels Feijen). Earl Strickland is another just the same as Niels (they both prefer their right eye). Ralf's another -- he prefers is left eye, and even rotates his face slightly over the top of the cue to do so.

But there are also those that either have no dominant eye, or else the "dominance" is so WEAK, that the vision center nearly perfectly bifurcates his/her face. Take a look at Mike Dechaine:

There's a REALLY good picture of Mike's sighting, taken where the camera was perfectly in line with the tip of his cue, and you can see the cue bifurcating his face. I'll try to find it and post it here for you.

-Sean

 

[Mikjary]

Joe:

I *do* get what you're saying, please believe me. I *do* agree that there are folks who naturally prefer sighting with either one eye, or have a vision center that is not truly the center of their face (i.e. the bridge of the nose). Just look around at the pros that sight with one eye or prefer one eye -- you already mentioned one (Niels Feijen). Earl Strickland is another just the same as Niels (they both prefer their right eye). Ralf's another -- he prefers is left eye, and even rotates his face slightly over the top of the cue to do so.

But there are also those that either have no dominant eye, or else the "dominance" is so WEAK, that the vision center nearly perfectly bifurcates his/her face. Take a look at Mike Dechaine:

There's a REALLY good picture of Mike's sighting, taken where the camera was perfectly in line with the tip of his cue, and you can see the cue bifurcating his face. I'll try to find it and post it here for you.

-Sean

I hold my cue in about the same place as the picture. It is slightly under the right side of my chin. It looks like his is, too.

Best,
Mike

 

[sfleinen]

I hold my cue in about the same place as the picture. It is slightly under the right side of my chin. It looks like his is, too.

Best,
Mike

Mike:

I sight the exact same way as well.

But, folks can [rightfully] say camera angles can be deceiving, and I'm trying to find that picture taken where the cue is nearly perfectly in line with the camera (i.e. if the cue were a gun barrel, the bullet would've hit the cameraman in the groin). And in that particular picture, you can see how squarely in the middle of Mike's face the line of the cue is. If the cue shaft were a shaped explosive, it would cleave Mike's head right up through the bridge of his nose.

I'm trying to find that picture (in amongst things I'm supposed to be doing ). It's on the main azbilliards.com site, as a news article.

I'll try to find it and post it here.
-Sean

 

[JoeW]

Several years ago 1992 or so, I conducted a study of eye placement at the Akron Open. Earl was one of the people I observed. I found something that is not often talked about but you can see it from time to time if you observe closely.

Many pros place the cue under both eyes for most shots but the same pros will use one eyed shooting for length of table shots. Earl was one of the players I observed who did this. I don’t know if his style has changed lately but back then he used two eyes for half table or less and one eye for longer shots. I have no idea if he did it intentionally or not.

Later, in the same tournament I noticed a tendency for several pros to do something similar.

Two eyed shooting makes sense when cue ball placement and pocketing are equally important. One eyed shooting makes sense over long distance for accuracy.

 

[JoeW]

I do think that the eye dominance and parallax correction problems can be overcome by training the brain with a particular sight picture. The eye dominance may be present but the shooter has taught the brain that this is the consistent sight picture. Obviously it works because so many pros have one sight picture that is near the center line of the head.

None-the-less, if one were attempting to become a pro I think it would be best to work with the eye dominance problem to develop an optimal sight picture for that brain using its preferences.

Part of the problem here is that in real life, outside of pool, most of us do not need to develop this type of ability and so we can train in whatever way we want to. Using the brain’s natural ability and preferences would be “better.”

 

[sfleinen]

To follow-up on my previous posts, this is not the pic I remember (the one I remember was taken at an SBE Open 10-ball), but this one is good enough:

Notice in this pic, the cue is v-e-r-y slightly on the right-ish side of his chin, but yet the face is v-e-r-y slightly turned to the right to compensate, bringing the cue line back to the middle of his face.

Anyway, I do agree with JoeW that players will sometimes compensate, and they may even prefer a certain eye for "certain types of shots." This goes back to a piece of what Geno teaches in his "perfect aim" approach -- where certain cuts may "prefer" the eye on the same side of the face as the cue angle itself (i.e. right eye sees better the ball overlap that occurs on cut shots to the right, and vice-versa).

-Sean

 

[BilliardsAbout]

Several years ago 1992 or so, I conducted a study of eye placement at the Akron Open. Earl was one of the people I observed. I found something that is not often talked about but you can see it from time to time if you observe closely.

Many pros place the cue under both eyes for most shots but the same pros will use one eyed shooting for length of table shots. Earl was one of the players I observed who did this. I don’t know if his style has changed lately but back then he used two eyes for half table or less and one eye for longer shots. I have no idea if he did it intentionally or not.

Later, in the same tournament I noticed a tendency for several pros to do something similar.

Two eyed shooting makes sense when cue ball placement and pocketing are equally important. One eyed shooting makes sense over long distance for accuracy.

That's pretty cool. I've never noticed anything like that before and perhaps there's a video or something we can all check out?

I've mentioned before that when shooting rifles the sights are crisp and faraway targets are blurred. We want the opposite in pool. Even George Fels who preaches watching the cue ball whenever possible also said he looks at the object ball during his final stroke.

And yes, there are bifurcating chin players but they are probably blessed with binocular and not ambiocular vision. By the way, this looks super-cool when you part your hair right down in the middle also. :smile:

 

[CreeDo]

The circle test is a good one. The way I'd state it is... when you close your dominant eye, the picture jumps because the brain just switched from one eye to the other. When you close your non-dominant eye, nothing seems to happen, because the brain was already looking through the eye that's still open.

The perfect aim DVD gives a little trick on aiming cut shots, based on your dominance, that I occasionally find useful.

There is only one specific case where I use my eye dominance every time, and that's doing ball-in-hand on a combo, which I almost never miss. I line up the shot, let my tip rest on the table and align the cue perfectly on the shot line. Then I lift it and place the cue ball dead center below it. To make sure it's truly dead center below I close my useless right eye and position my left eye directly over the stick. I could probably do this with both eyes open but I feel more sure of it when I'm just using the left eye.

 

[JoeW]

Originally I was a “one eyed” shooter. It just made sense to me as a psychologist and my work in rehabilitative medicine. After my study at the Akron Open where I found that most pros were two eyed shooters most of the time. I reasoned that two eyed shooting was probably better because of the three dimensional nature required (pocketing and position control). I therefore trained my self to center the cue stick under my eyes and played like that for many years. I continued to use one eyed shooting for length of table shots.

I have noticed over the last few years that I have developed a tendency to place the cue stick more under the right eye and my consistency has improved. The cue ball position is not as important as it once was as I learned to estimate position based on power and spin.

The stick is not under the eye but it is no longer in the center of my face. Little by little my brain is moving back to a revised version of one eyed shooting based on eye dominance.

I don't think there is a "right" way. I do think that some ways are better than others and have always preferred to go with the brain's natural inclinations. It is a powerful tool.

 

[bigshooter]

Imagine the hottest girl you've ever seen walking by and you are forced to choose one eye to look at her with. You only have 5 seconds... that is your dominant eye.

 

[naji]

Imagine the hottest girl you've ever seen walking by and you are forced to choose one eye to look at her with. You only have 5 seconds... that is your dominant eye.

Just for the fun of it, Something else beside my eye could jump up first !!!!!!!!