Children who learn to see underwater clearly

[AptaMer]

We all know that merpeople have always been depicted as seeing clearly underwater without masks or goggles or lenses, which is why it's annoying that if you go au naturel with nothing on your eyes, you can't see clearly.

I've always wondered whether there was some kind of contact-lens you could put on to see clearly underwater, but it seems that maybe people have the ability to see underwater if they can learn a certain relex. The video below is about how some children who freedive from a very young age learn to develop a reflex that allows them to see underwater.



These children start learning at a very young age, I wonder if one can learn this at an older age

[MerEmma]

Oh my god. Could I be more jealous? I don't think so. That's absolutely amazing. I want a step-by-step tutorial on eHow, stat. ahaha. That's amazing.

[Mermaid Isabela]

So jealous!

[Rat-Soup]

Fun fact: People who are extremely short-sighted can see almost normally underwater! Possibly dangerous suggestion, but if you were to wear contact lenses designed for correcting far-sightedness (at a corrective index of at least +1.30), you may be able to see normally underwater. I'm short-sighted, but not enough to completely throw off the distortion that the water causes, so my eyesight (without glasses) above and below water is about the same. :-/

[lasserine]

That is interesting.

I used to wear thick glasses for distance, and could see really well under water. After having Lasik done, to correct it, my underwater vision, is blurry now.

[AptaMer]

I want a step-by-step tutorial

It was a Swedish scientist who discovered this phenomenon. It seems that after she observed the phenomenon in Moken children, she did some experiments with untrained Euopean children to see if they could learn the reflex.

If you go to her homepage ( http://www4.lu.se/vision-group/peopl...ni/anna-gislen ) you can find her scientific articles including the one on experiments training children can be downloaded there.

[Ashe]

Oh yeah! This article! My brother told me all about this after my underwater experience of opening my eyes in the ocean. So jealous!

[Blondie]

I would assume a lot people who are in cultures that basically live in the water would be able to see well underwater. Maybe not perfectly like these children but better than us. It's true, we adapt to our conditions we live in.

[Thalassa]

Fun fact: People who are extremely short-sighted can see almost normally underwater! Possibly dangerous suggestion, but if you were to wear contact lenses designed for correcting far-sightedness (at a corrective index of at least +1.30), you may be able to see normally underwater. I'm short-sighted, but not enough to completely throw off the distortion that the water causes, so my eyesight (without glasses) above and below water is about the same. :-/

Personally, I have a prescription of -5 and -6 to correct my nearsightedness. I can see okay underwater (according to my tests, not really WELL) without my contacts in, but when I get above water I can't see. So it's a choice between seeing underwater or seeing the clients/kids/etc above water. XP Or wearing glasses out of the water, I guess, but glasses give me headaches.

[Winged Mermaid]

So cool!!

On a related note, they’ve made full eye contacts that have a layer of air on the inside of the lens, allowing for use for vision underwater! They’ve tested them to 300ft and with competition swimmers- they are safe and stay securely in. Other contacts on the market are not full eye contacts and therefore fall out frequently in the water. He's an article on them: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...5502/index.htm I would totally save up for these babies.

[Mermaid Danielle]

Cool! Thanks for posting!

[Mermaid Narina]

I wish i could do that!!! If you see blurry because your pupil dilates underwater, then to see clearly you would need it to contract... right? So if you looked at a light underwater, would your pupils contract, making you see clearly?

[Ashe]

Very cool, Iona! Thanks for posting

[Mermaid Hamant]

This is so cool! I would absolutely LOVE to be able to see clearly underwater. Goggles can really be a drag when you are trying to look like a natural mermaid. Also, I find that I can hold my breath longer when I can see in the water (when I put goggles on.) I will probably be looking into trying to learn how to do this now. lol

[Nyx]

After seeing this I went on a mad hunt to see what they did in the experiments, and it seems like there's hope for us! (maybe)
From what I read, it says the kids they trained did this for 33 days. They set boards with different sized lines at a certain distance (was not specified I think) and they tried focusing in on them for hours.
It makes sense, it is a muscle that needs exercise. I wish there was more info on it, maybe someone with better research skills should try to look this up X)
I think I might try this whenever I have access to a pool

[SeaGlass Siren]

i am jealous...

[Drowning]

I would love to sign up for that training! It would be a dream come true.

After seeing this I went on a mad hunt to see what they did in the experiments, and it seems like there's hope for us! (maybe)
From what I read, it says the kids they trained did this for 33 days. They set boards with different sized lines at a certain distance (was not specified I think) and they tried focusing in on them for hours.
It makes sense, it is a muscle that needs exercise. I wish there was more info on it, maybe someone with better research skills should try to look this up X)
I think I might try this whenever I have access to a pool

[MerEmma]

I hope the training exists very soon. :b

[AptaMer]

After seeing this I went on a mad hunt to see what they did in the experiments, and it seems like there's hope for us! (maybe)
From what I read, it says the kids they trained did this for 33 days. They set boards with different sized lines at a certain distance (was not specified I think) and they tried focusing in on them for hours.
It makes sense, it is a muscle that needs exercise. I wish there was more info on it, maybe someone with better research skills should try to look this up X)
I think I might try this whenever I have access to a pool

Hi Nyx,

I presume you looked at the Methods section of the article "Visual training improves underwater vision in children" from Anna Gislén's website?

She trained for acuity (ability to see fine details) underwater using so-called 100% contrast gratings, or patterns of black & white bars, as shown in the photo



More information on how these gratings work can be found at http://psy.mq.edu.au/vision/~peterw/csf.html

She used B&W bar gratings of 1.75, 2.18, 2.49, 2.91, 3.49, 4.36, and 5.82 cycles per degree, which simply means 1.75 to 5.82 bars in each degree on the paper. Note that you can make your own gratings using a laser printer. Now at 50 cm distance from the eye to the paper, 1 degree would cover 0.83 cm horizontally on the paper, so you print gratings with the required number of bars in 0.83 cm.

For taking videos of the eye's reflex, she used a Sony Nightshot camera, which can detect infrared, with a special optical filter that allows only infrared light to reach the camera. She used infrared Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) to illuminate the eye with infrared light. I found a picture of the camera setup she was using here http://www.wdr.de/tv/quarks/sendungs...en.jsp?pbild=3



You can see that it's a Sony consumer-grade video camera in an underwater housing with a ring of infrared LEDs around the lens to illuminate the subject's iris.

All of this could be replicated. I wonder if a project to develop an open source "Learn to see underwater" training program should be started?

[Nyx]

@AptaMer
Wow thank you so much for posting this! it's awesome!
I actually only saw a small article that paraphrased the experiment, so I couldn't get the details.
Again thank you for finding this!
It would be amazing if someone duplicated it, a good business too.
Specially for people swimming in the ocean, what with trying to spot different fish while trying to look graceful (goggles don't help the later XD).