Eye dominance

[Hairtrigger]

When I was a kid learning to shoot my dad's 22 cal Crosman pellet rifle I was unable to close my left eye (shooting right hand) so I tipped my head over further and used my left eye for sighting. After trying for quite some time I learned to close my left eye. and now with very mild success I am working on keeping both eyes open. I do have a dominate right eye.

This evening my 5 year old was tipping her head over as I used to do with a rifle I had in a cradle that I had just mounted a scope on. I had her do the test where you look at something in the distance, make a triangle with your hands and bring them to your face without taking the focus off of the object. Every time the results were the same, Her left eye is dominate ( she is right handed ).

Too early to worry? can the eyes change as she grows up?

Am I just a over zelous parent?

Thanks

[Les Snyder]

Hairtrigger... I've been working on the brain dominance/ reaction times for about 15years with my 9th graders....I have them catch rulers, and according to the distance they catch them at (both with and without warning) they are able to convert to the time of fall due to gravity....there appears to be a heirarchy according to brain dominance (opposite side is controlled, ie... right brain hemisphere controls left side body function...etc) the quickest reaction times are with left handed people ranging down in the low .09-.12s range, next comes the right handed people with dominant left eye .13-15s range, then come right handed people that when they interlace fingers and cross thumbs have a left thumb over the top in the .16s-.19s range, and finally the slowest (like myself) are right handed, dominant right eye, and right thumb in the .19 - .22s range...

in educationspeak most of the dominant left eye/left thumb students are "global" with preference for music,art, history, language arts... and the dominant right eye/right thumb are "concrete sequential" with more linear thought process and like math/science.... left eye/thumb are typically the athletes ...I work with all my student athlets with sports visualization which especially helps the right handed/eyed athletes

my left eye/thumb kids have a hard time with factor/label problem solving skills...dont expect your daughter to like proofs in geometry

most of the world class shooters I've had the pleasure to talk to have been right handed with dominant left eyes, and I would guess that most all world class athletes in any sport would be the same... regards

Les

[diehli]

You're weird. For info on dominance and shooting, do a forum search.

[Mistral404]

Les,

That was a pretty interesting reply.

I am right handed and left eye dominant. I do have my left thumb on top of my right when I interlace my hands.

Way way way back in college I participated in psychology experiments (I was hoping for psycho-pharm studies but alas it was not going to happen) on cognitive learning.

It turned out I was a pretty fast learner meaning I was slow on the first test but quickly learned and adapted. I had very very fast reaction times, enough so the experimenter commented about it several times.

The only weird part is the math. I was in the top 10 percent of the country on the standardized math tests and the ony way I can carry a tune is in a back pack.

But I do a great job at pattern recognition both visually and logically.

Again thanks for your response, I found it enlightening.

[Les Snyder]

Mistral404...those were some generalizations, and there are always exceptions....I've been lucky that a lot of my classes in the past 15yrs have been honors... usually 3honors and 2 regular per school year... most of the honors kids are disciplined enough to do well even though they may not like the class... the global kids seem to have a real problem doing word problems requiring applications of a formula, where there is an orderly step by step procedure to follow like a flow chart.... they can perceive the answer but can't seem to figure how to get there... most like algebra but dislike geometry.... my class is intro chemistryand physics so I bombard them with the factor label concept from day 3...by the time they take regular chemistry they have a pretty good idea on how to do it, and get a lot of favorable comments from those that go on to college level work....

the reaction rate thing came from a lab I do where they drop tennis balls off the stadium, and calculate acceleration and distance....I found that they were slow in starting the stopwatch, so came up with the catch the ruler idea to determine their reaction times when given a warning 3..2...1...drop....

I tied this into some research I was doing on sports visualization to improve my shooting ... on left and right brain hemisphere dominance....most of those master class shooters I've talked to at matches are right handed and left eye dominant....the only exception so far is Ken Tapp

regards

[shred]

my left eye/thumb kids have a hard time with factor/label problem solving skills...dont expect your daughter to like proofs in geometry

I must be wired wrong.. I loved geometry proofs and computer programming. And I'm strongly left handed and left eyed. But I have a pretty slow RT, so maybe my brain is flipped over or something

[diehli]

They installed my brain backwards and then cross-threaded my head when they screwed it on.

[bountyhunter]

I thought they drowned all the cross dominant kids at birth.

Seriously, dominance won't change but she might be able to cross train if the eye isn't heavily dominant. I tried to cross train dominance to my left eye because it sees a lot better and gave up. Right eye just won't let go of the steering wheel.

[stryfox]

I am right handed left eye dominant.

There may be hope for me yet...

I did come in second once....

Seriously, interesting observations.

[Duane Thomas]

I'm cross dominant - heavily. I use the left eye for shooting a pistol, but for rifles and shotguns I just use the right eye. It worked well enough to shoot Expert in the Army with an M16.