There is no fear of God before their eyes.
—Romans 8:8
5478 Most Remarkable Camera
Amateur Photographer Dick Eisiminger startles fellow photographers by telling them he has the world’s most remarkable camera. “It has a maximum aperture of f/2, automatically aims and focuses in half-a-second, automatically adjusts aperture in even less time,” he says. “The color film on which it records is stereoscopic and self-renewing after every exposure. The development time is a fraction of a second.”
Expensive? It’s priceless—it’s the human eye.
—Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
5479 The Eye
A beautiful eye makes silence eloquent; a kind eye makes contradiction an assent; an enraged eye makes beauty deformed. This little member gives life to every other part about us: and I believe that the story of Argus implies no more than that the eye is in every part; that is to say, every other part would be mutilated, were not its force represented more by the eye than by itself.
—Addison
5480 See Or Hear
The nerves leading to the eye are much larger than those leading to the ear. Science tells us that we give twenty-five times as much attention to what we see as to what we hear.
5481 Emphasis On Audio-Visual
A top Army communications expert has said if you want people to remember what you say, illustrate your talk. If you use audio only, listeners will recall 70% of what you say in three hours, only 10% in three days. If you use visuals only, viewers will recall 72% in three hours, 20% in three days. If you use audio-visual presentations, your audience will recall 85% of the message in three hours, 65% in three days.
—Survey Bulletin
5482 Person’s Reaction Time
Ask a friend to hold a dollar bill by one end with the bill hanging down. Then cup your thumb and forefinger around the middle of the bill—over the picture of Washington—but do not let your fingers touch the bill. When your friend lets the bill drop, try to squeeze your fingers together in time to catch it as it drops to the floor. You missed, didn’t you?
This trick illustrates that the average person’s reaction time—the time it takes to relay instructions from eye to brain to fingers—is almost three-fourths of a second. This means that if you are driving down a city street at the legal limit—30 miles per hour—and a youngster dashes into the street 33 feet in front of your car, you will hit him even before you touch your brake.
—Minneapolis Tribune
5483 Increasing The Retention
When relying on verbalization alone to communicate, an estimated 90% of a message is misinterpreted or forgotten entirely. We retain only 10% of what we hear. But, by using proper visual aids in conjunction with verbalization, retention increases to approximately 50%.
5484 Looking At The Eye
The expressive power of the human eye is so great that it determines, in a manner, the expression of the whole countenance. It is almost impossible to disguise it. It is said that gamblers rely more upon the study of the eye, to discover the state of their opponents’ game, than upon any other means. Even animals are susceptible of its power. The dog watches the eye of his master, and discovers from it, before a word is spoken, whether he is to expect a caress or apprehend chastisement. It is said that the lion cannot attack a man so long as the man looks him steadily in the eyes.
—Selected
5485 The Widening Pupils
Chinese jade dealers watch a buyer’s eyes to judge whether he will pay a high price for a specimen. Confirming this cunning practice, psychologists have established that the pupils of a person’s eyes widen when he is looking at something that pleases him.
—National Geographic News
5486 A Cat’s Fall
Quickness is shown in how a cat falls. Like the magician’s hand, a falling feline moves quicker than the human eye, so nobody has ever actually seen how a cat always manages to land on its feet. A Houston Post photographer, Chester O’Donnell, attached a new gadget known as an electronic flash to his camera and shot a series of pictures of a tumbling tabby. The shutter speed was 1/100 of a second, the flash time, 1/5000 of a second. The cat was held up feet together and up at a height of three-and-one-half feet. Even the camera could not catch the cat falling with its feet up.
5487 Shortcuts In Cartoons
Characters in animated cartoon are usually drawn with only three fingers and a thumb on each hand because the omission saves time and labor and is rarely noticed.
5488 From Left To Right
Scientists have found that it’s easier for the eyes to move from left to right than from right to left.
HENCE: most pictures have chief points of interest on the left. Or movements of lines begin at left.
Also, with a few exceptions, all written languages are read from left. Except Chinese and Japanese (due to use of brush held almost upright in hand which is easier to make marks from right to left).
ALSO, most, when entering a building or church, will make for the right side. Most shoppers move from central entrance to the right.
Moreover, the eyes exaggerate the left portion of what it sees, starting from floor level. Thus, it is easier to look at a pyramid standing on its base then one standing on its apex.
5489 The Miniscope
The development of a telescope so tiny it can fit on the eye like a contact lens and double the vision of the partially-blind has been announced. Its inventor, Dr. William Feinblood of New York City, said more than half-a-million persons with only partial sight may benefit from his “miniscope.”
5490 To “See” With Echoes
Palo Alto, California (AP)—A baby blinded since birth now can “see” his favorite toy and reach out accurately to take it in his hands.
Dennis Daughters, 8-months-old, “sees” much like a bat does, by broadcasting silent sounds that return as audible echoes. The echoes tell him where things are, and other knowledge about the world he cannot see.
It’s all done through equipment within a kind of beanie cap worn on his head.
Objects struck by the beam return as echoes, which then are translated into audible sounds, conducted through plastic tubes to the baby’s ears. The sounds are a repeated series of pleasant little whistles.
The echoes tell:
—The distance of an object, through pitch of the sound. The closer the object is, the lower the pitch.
—Direction, because an object to the right of center produces a louder sound if something is more to the right than the left.
—Size, by the intensity of the echo when he is looking directly at it. By moving his head slightly, he can define the edges of it, where echoes diminish.
—Surface, hard, smooth objects echo back a clear, pure sound. Fuzzy surfaces sound “mushy.”
Telesensory Systems, Inc. (TSI), is the US and Canadian distributor of the sonicguide for the blind, a pair of modified spectacle frames that incorporates the electronics for broadcasting ultrasound and making audible sound from the returning echoes, fed to each ear.
Designed as an adjunct to the blind persons’s guide dog or cane, the sonicguide “sees” things up to 12 to 20 feet away.
The beam produces echoes from objects 40 degrees, or sometimes more, on either side of center of direction of the wearer’s eyes.
5491 Six Blind Hindus
Remember the ancient Hindu story about six blind men who were brought to “see an elephant?
“It’s very like a wall,” said the first man as he touched the side of the elephant. “It’s very like a spear,” said the second man as he stroked the elephant’s tusk. And the third man, taking the elephant’s squirming trunk in hand, said, “It’s very like a snake!”
“Nonsense!” the fourth man shouted. Stretching his arms about one of the legs, he concluded, “This wondrous beast is very like a tree!” The fifth man, touching the elephant’s ear, cried, “Even the blindest can tell this animal is very like a fan.” And the sixth, grabbing the tall, assured his friends that “the elephant is really very like a rope!”
—Selected
5492 Pastor’s Unintended Animation
Several years ago I was chaplain of a private school for boys. One evening while I was reading the service leading up to the sermon, a black cat wandered into the chapel. The door through which it entered was behind me. Close behind the cat came the headmaster, who cornered the cat on the altar. All this was unknown to me.
As he lunged for the cat I announced my text: “And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch forth thine hand and take it by the tail.”
There was a tittering among the boys and teachers which I did not understand. But I did understand when I turned my head and saw the headmaster marching down the aisle with the black cat under his arm.
I was tempted to say, “There goes Moses now,” but I didn’t.
—W. B. McKinley
5493 Epigram On Seeing
• Hearing a hundred times is not as good as seeing once.
—Japanese Proverbs
• In delivery, next to the voice in effectiveness, is the countenance, and this is ruled over by the eyes.
—Cicero
See also: Listening ; Talking ; II Pet. 2:14.