From this article’s headline, you are probably wondering, oh no! One more thing that defines differences between males and females!

Yep, but this discovery all happened by chance.  Over the past 6 years, I have conducted much research at Mission3D regarding the effects of Viewing Stereo 3D Photography on various individuals.  My research included nearly 15,000 subjects from the USA, Hong Kong, China, Lebanon, Dubai, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

My research began after I noticed that some people when they put on Anaglyph 3D Glasses see depth instantly while with others it takes a bit of time to see any depth, and in few cases it takes nearly a minute to see depth with nearly 1 out of 1000 not able to perceive depth at all.

I started tracking the number of people that instantly see depth and started capturing the amount of time it takes for others to see depth.  I first did not correlate my findings with regards to the gender of the individual being researched.  Simply put, I discovered that about 7 out of 10 people see depth (either immediately or within 5 seconds) when using the standard Anaglyph 3D glasses (with the cyan on the right and the red on the left).

I also noticed that a minority of people who take more than a few seconds to see depth sometimes complain of a headache-like feeling.  However, the headache never seems to occur with people that see depth instantly.   I tried to research the Internet in hopes of discovering what causes this headache-like feeling, but I was not able to find any reference to this subject other than a few cautionary notes here and there that tells people who are using the Anaglyph 3D Glasses to stop using them if they feel a headache.  No one seemed to pin the reason down.  It was basically one of those questions that begged a good answer and presented me with a welcome challenge.

Then one day, I decided to switch the lenses of the 3D Glasses and place the Red on the Right and the Cyan on the Left and test it on those who do not see depth instantly, to my surprise, with the lenses switched these subjects were now able to see depth instantly and the potential headaches that occur with few of them disappeared.  Then I came up with the concept of left-eyed (people who see instant depth when the cyan is on the left of the 3D glasses) and right-eyed individuals (people who see instant depth when the cyan is on the right of the 3D Glasses).  Not being a neuroscientist, I could not even attempt to correlate these findings with left-brained or right-brained individuals.  I will just share with you my findings and hope that others that are more qualified make such correlations.

Later I started observing to see if any gender relationships existed with those who I considered left-eyed or right-eyed.   And to my surprise, there was a considerable correlation.   Basically data from the US research showed that nearly 70% of females would prefer to see depth with the cyan on the left, and 80% of males would prefer to see depth with the cyan on the right.

Interestingly, these numbers were slightly different when it came to people living in the GCC countries, such as Saudi Arabia, where 93% of males would prefer to see depth with the cyan lens on the right and 65% of females with the cyan lens on the left.  This last finding inspired me to name rename the categories into Stereo Feminine Vision to depict those who see depth instantly with the cyan on the left, and Stereo Masculine Vision for those who see depth instantly with the cyan lens on the right, because it was very telling.

There was always a small percentage of people who would see depth quickly either way, but still preferred one mode over the other, I call those “Eyebidextrous” (one of my newly defined terms).  Still there were people who do not see depth at all, but this is due to either having a lazy eye, or a previous accident with one eye, or on rare occasions, the brain’s inability to mix the two left and right images and create depth perception.

Further more, I finally also learned the real cause of this headache-like feeling on those who have it.  Basically people who don’t see depth (when using the wrong gender glasses) instantly see a blinking effect similar to the way a person feels when he/she goes from total darkness to instant bright light.  When that person repeatedly puts the glasses and takes them off to try to see what they are looking at, he/she begins to get a headache, just like what occurs if you oscillate repeatedly between light and dark like strobe lights.

TIP: The trick is to keep the 3D Glasses on until your eye adjusts to the darkness of the Red lens and you start seeing depth and all will be well.  Another trick is to do a long wink and keep the eye closed where the red lens is, thus getting that eye adjusted to total darkness, then a few seconds later open both eyes and you should be fine too.  When your done looking and want to take off the 3D Glasses, just immediately flip the 3D Glasses to switch Red lens from right to left, look thru the glasses for about 5 seconds, then take them off, and voila no more headaches.

I also learned that with frequent use of Stereo-Masculine Vision 3D Glasses by Stereo Feminine Vision individuals, those individuals quickly adapt, over a few days, and eventually they see depth instantly using either Stereo-Masculine or Stereo-Feminine Vision 3D Glasses.

This is directly related to either one’s left, or right eye, ability to adjust to bright light after being subjected to total darkness.  Being of a darker spectrum, the red lens represents darkness (low luminous sensitivity) and the cyan represents light (or high luminous sensitivity).

5 Steps to see if you have Stereo-Masculine or Stereo-Feminine vision:

1. Go into the bathroom at night and turn off the light until it becomes completely dark.
2. Spend a few minutes in the dark until your eyes adjust to the darkness
3. Now quickly turn on all the lights
4. Notice which of your two eyes can open faster, and which you wink and try to keep closed.
5. If you open the right eye first, then you have Stereo-Masculine Vision, and if you open the left eye first, then you have Stereo-Feminine Vision

Now some psychologists suggest that most women are left-brained and most men are right-brained, which begged the question: Are there further correlations with right or left-brain individuals? Does it mean that a person with Stereo-Masculine Vision is right-brained or a person with Stereo-Feminine Vision is left-brained? Who knows, maybe so!

These important findings, first discovered and exposed by Mission3D LLC, made us better understand and helped us develop more successful Stereo 3D Advertising materials.  Now we use 3D Glasses with Feminine Vision when the target audience is mostly females, and 3D Glasses with Masculine Vision when the target audience is unisex or mostly males.

The Photo3D Kit allows people to create both types of imageries, just fold the paper 3D glasses that come with the kit backward to place the red on the right and use as Stereo Feminine Vision, plus when you mix the images using the Photo3-D Mixer Software, click on the switch double arrows icon on the center of the glasses window to create the matching mixed image.  So if you would like to explore Stereo 3D Photography and thought it would not be for you because you don’t or never enjoyed it, think again, you actually potentially could, but you were probably a person with Stereo Feminine Vision trying to use Stereo Masculine Vision 3D Glasses or vice-versa.

Final Note: Now, I don’t expect 20% of Men to be wearing “girlie” glasses, as obviously for some, this would hurt their masculinity.  3D Glasses should continue to be designed for Men with both types of lens placement preferences, and so for Women, or unisex.  Furthermore, I believe some of you may not agree with my choice of “feminine” or “masculine” nomenclature of Stereo Vision, the intent was not to be Stereotypical (no pun intended), rather to attract people’s attention and share with them the discovery and the telling conclusions and correlations.  My hope, is that the decision on what type of 3D glasses to use, for example with ELLE magazine vs. with T3 Magazine, has become evident.  Plus, I am sure you agree that the headline of this article, as written, grabbed your attention and interest to read more.

Click here for a fun Left Brain Right-Brain reference article.

- Authored by Sam Ramadan

(C) Copyright 2009 by Mission3-D Publishing Ltd., All rights reserved.  This blog article, in part or in whole, may not be copied or reproduced without the Author’s prior written approval.  Only a 50 words max summary may be inserted within other posts, blogs, or articles as long as a link reference is included to this original blog article.

Special thanks to Steven Bradford and to Gabi Berger for their comments and contributions to add the final note.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 8:23 am and is filed under 3D Advertising, 3D Discoveries, 3D History, 3D Printing, 3d glasses, Photo3D Kit, Portrait 3D Photography, Stereo 3D Experience Learning, Stereo 3D in Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.