Training Binocular Fusion 

Info: This article is in active construction. Its contents are subject to change.

Training Binocular Fusion

The binocular-fusion training methods described in this article are based on personal practice rather than peer-reviewed research. Their effectiveness can vary from one person to another, so you’ll need to try it yourself to determine whether they work for you.

By impossible, non-retinal and/or binocular color combinations I mean new color experiences that are generated by disruptiong the chromatic redundancy of binocular color vision.

In the following several training methods for binocular vision will be presented.

The easiest method to experience impossible color combinations without having to cross/parallel your eyes (as someone with normal binocular vision) is through Anaglyph 3D glasses. Paper versions can be cheap and good enough for disrupting the chromatic redundancy of binocular color vision in order to generate impossible color combinations. As an example, when looking at the "yellow" of an RGB screen with red/cyan Anaglyph 3D glasses you'll see it as red in one and green in the other eye. Without sufficient context this new impossible red/green hue might look "yellowish" to some people, but when comparing the red/green hue to the normal trichromatic yellow hue by quickly moving the red/cyan 3D glasses up and down or closing one eye at a time, you should see that there's a strong difference. By repeatedly comparing your color vision through Anaglyph 3D glasses to your normal color vision, you're training your brain to distinguish non-retinal from retinal colors.

You might be wondering why this "impossible color effect" hasn't already been more widely recognized when watching 3D movies for and with Anaglyph 3D glasses. This because while Anaglyph 3D glasses disrupt the chromatic redundancy of binocular color vision, they don't sufficiently increase the dimensionality of normal trichromatic vision, because their filter mechanism is too crude. Although a large number of people have technically already seen these impossible color combinations, it is always in a trichromatic color context, even though they are seeing new color experiences. The brain tends to default to what it's used to in the absence of adequate context and consciousness/awareness, so people simply don't notice that they are seeing impossible color combinations. But once you consciously analyze your color vision with and without such glasses, you'll notice that color qualities and quantities are very different.

A simple method to train for binocular fusion for those who can use cross-/parallel-eye viewing techniques (e.g. as in Autostereograms) is to look at many different impossible color combinations, preferably in many different contexts. However, adequate context for impossible color combinations is quite difficult to encounter, since practically nothing is designed with them in mind.

The Stereo Trichromatic Color Mixer application allows you to easily view isolated impossible non-retinal color combinations and compare them to their approximated retinal color combinations. Click the top left/right color dots to change their color.

The Stereo Dot Viewer application allows you to easily view semi-isolated impossible non-retinal color combinations beside each other in the context of a hue circle. Click the color dots to change their color. The inital example colors show a functional red-green color vision deficiency correction using only impossible dichromatic color combinations. 

The best currently available method to train for binocular fusion and seeing impossible color combinations in context is by using the Custom Color Vision application developed by Ooqui Sensory Lab. It allows you to customize the color vision of each eye through simple and modifiable spectrum images within the digital trichromatic color space context.

In order to train your brain hemisphere and eye dominance, you can use naturally ambiguous opical illusions. The Spinning Dancer Illusion is a good example for this. You should train to voluntarily switch the spinning rotation/direction of the spinning dancer. You train voluntary spinning rotation/direction switch by: focusing on one or the other hemisphere of your brain; by imagining either the dancer or some other object spinning in the other direction; by tilting your head or slightly closing one eye to make one eye less dominant; by consciously focusing on one of your eyes more than on the other; etc.

These are methods that you have to train in order to improve. They will help you get more control over your eye and brain hemisphere dominance.