Vision is one of the senses that is necessary for daily activities. Even poor vision can be managed in this day and age with the use of aids and corrective devices. Neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman pondered this with popular ophthalmologist Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg.
The duo mulled over the idea of perfect vision and its representation, how poor vision worked, and a speck of the possibility of humans having better than normal vision. In theory, having a 20/20 vision is considered the optimum bar for a healthy human.
Having 20/20 vision means that one can read the smallest letters at the same distance as an average healthy person can. This acts as a control for other abnormal cases across the spectrum. One can have worse vision, but one can also have better than the best numbers for their sight.
“20/20 vision means that you can read the smallest letters at 20 feet away that the average healthy person can read at 20 feet away.”
Taking the eye chart in an ophthalmologist’s office as a reference, the simple way to understand vision that’s worse than 20/20 is not being able to read letters that a healthy individual could read at 20 feet away. Dr. Goldberg lists various ranges, such as 20/25, 20/40, or even 20/200.
In fact, anyone with a sight calculated at 20/200 or worse enters the legally blind category. This means that the individual struggles to perceive shapes, motion, or even light.
“That’s kind of the edge of being actually fully blind. We call legal blindness in the United States, typically, 20/200 or worse.”
On the contrary, human beings can have “better than normal vision.” Dr. Goldberg claimed athletes, fighter pilots, and even individuals who underwent LASIK surgeries have shown sight levels scoring better than normal.
But what about a healthy adult’s vision compared to that of babies or even animals? The duo spoke about that in detail too.
Andrew Huberman discusses exceptional cases of vision with Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg
While an adult’s vision is easily determinable and relatively simple to work with, what happens when we put it up against the sight of a human baby or various animals? Dr. Huberman debunked the misconception of babies being able to see the world. It turns out that humans are born with 20/200 vision. This means that their perception of everyone and everything around them is blurry.
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On the other hand, prey animals like hawks and owls are normally born with 20/10 or 20/8 vision. The phenomena surrounding this sense have always been intriguing, and it’s always interesting to note how they come to various individuals at different levels.
