Talk:Binocular dysphoria

This article was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:

Merge, 28 December 2023, see discussion.
keep, 11 February 2010, see discussion.

Discussion of sources

There's no link to any medial journals or articles of any kind. The New England Journal of Medicine doesn't mention "Binocular Dysphoria", neither does the New York Times, or even the American Optometric Association! I got nothing but blog posts, and reposts of the same story; I don't think there's any credibility behind this.

You are looking in the wrong places. Realize that binocular dysphoria only occurs when subjects are immersed in artificial 3d environments. Therefore pretty much the only place you are going to see this referenced is in research related to VR or simulators.

See things like:

The frequency of occurrence and severity of side-effects of immersion virtual reality - Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine. Vol 65(6)
Some side-effects of immersion virtual reality - Army Personnel Research Establishment
Effects of participating in virtual environmentsa review of current knowledge - Safety Science Volume 23, Issue 1
Some evidence of adaptation to immersion in virtual reality - Displays Volume 16, Issue 3
Binocular vision in a virtual world: visual deficits following the wearing of a head-mounted display - Opthalmic and Physiological Optics
Side Effects and Aftereffects of Immersion in Virtual Environments - Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting Proceedings

A problem you are going to run into: research here is so sparse that researchers haven't even developed a common language. A researcher can describe the phenomenon of binocular dysphoria without ever calling it that - see dissociation of accommodation and convergence

ALSO: "Binocular vision in a virtual world: visual deficits following the wearing of a headmounted display" - Mon-Williams, Warn, Rushton: Subjects were examined before and after exposure to the HMD and there were clear signs of induced binocular stress for a number of the subjects.

ALSO: Visual Discomfort in Stereoscopic Displays: A Review - some researchers advise against stereoscopic viewing for children, stating that even though little evidence exist that viewing stereoscopic content causes permanent damage to the vision system, there is also no evidence that contradicts this argument". For some research this is cause for careful study for their undeveloped visual system as longterm effects of viewing stereoscopic content are yet unknown.

I have been able to find only one reference to this condition in the medical literature, EC Regan, KR Price - Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 1994 "The frequency of occurrence and severity of side-effects of immersion virtual reality". That article notes that side effects quickly disappeared. No long-term studies exist that I can find.

There are many scientific studies that show the visual processing centers remain quite plastic, even into adult ages. This would mean that the subject the article references is patently untrue - which would be a good reason why there's no medical research describing it.

Examples:

GM Stratton - Psychological Review, 1896, "Some Preliminary Experiments on Vision Without Inversion of the Retinal Image"
CS Harris - Psychological Review, 1965, "Perceptual adaptation to inverted, reversed, and displaced vision"
Shinsuke Shimojo, Yoshitaka Nakajima, Perception 10(4) 391 – 402, 1981, "Adaptation to the reversal of binocular depth cues"
... and many more.

Therefore, I conclude that this article is original research, and agree with the request for deletion. Crickel (talk) 22:08, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Plasticity may be at the root of the problem - the brain adapts to unusual visual cues, and then usually returns to normal when the cues do. What do you mean by "original research"? The authors of the Wikipedia article most certainly did not invent this. You seem to be applying a scientific / medical standard to judge whether the condition is in fact a medical reality, rather than a sourcing standard to determine whether it is in fact described by reliable sources. The primary public proponent here, Mark Pesce, claims the existence of various studies. We have not found them yet. Does a small series of studies on a purported medical condition (if they in fact exist), absent a more full amount of literature or a full airing and agreement among the scientific community, make for an encyclopedic topic? - Wikidemon (talk) 02:32, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I may be misunderstanding the definition of 'original research', then. We have something being called a 'condition' by a guy who's not a doctor (of ANY field), who doesn't list any symptoms or diagnostic criteria, and whose only evidence is the silence of the gaming industry and medical community. What would be the proper reason? Not notable? I'm not sure who posted the original AFD, myself.

Would it be more appropriate note the article with what we're finding? Or redirect to 'Vertigo (medical)'? Crickel (talk) 23:42, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, "original research" refers to conclusions made in a Wikipedia article that are based on the Wikipedia article writer's own knowledge, analysis, and reasoning, rather than facts sourceable to secondary sources. If I say "2010 was an unusually cold winter in Washington, D.C." and that observation comes from my memory of being outside this year, or my own interpretation of weather data, it's OR. If I cite that statement to an article in the paper, it's not OR (but it may be unscientific or even wrong - it's just not OR). Pesce is a respected expert in the field of CG / virtual reality, so sourcing a claim to something he said in a third-party publication is not OR. You don't have to be a physician or a Ph.D. to have something to say about the subject. I don't think the medical profession or academic community have monopolies on understanding of how stereo vision work on a cognitive / perceptual level. Moreover, it's not really up to us as Wikipedia editors to review the soundness of the claims. It's sourceable that they were made. Perhaps calling it a "condition", which implies medical science, is a bit off. Binocular dysphoria is a state of visual perception posited by Pesce, and perhaps observed in the studies he refers to, whereby various depth perception cues have been suspended following exposure to 3D media. - Wikidemon (talk) 07:47, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But to get more on topic, if we can't find sources for anyone but M. Pesce propounding this thing, it's a reasonable suggestion to merge it in with the article about him. Even if we do find some scientific papers and studies, they are primary sources for our purposes so the only secondary source we have is his talking about them, and news reports of the same... I do agree that it doesn't make much sense for Wikipedia to give scientific credence to something this obscure, I'm just taking exception to the notion that to be a noteworthy phenomenon something needs scientific acceptance. This can be seen as a consumer product usability issue rather than a distinct medical one, Latin name notwithstanding. - 22:43, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Article name

I hesitate to move this while it's under WP:AfD, but by normal naming convention the title should be "Binocular dysphoria" (second word not capitalized). - Wikidemon (talk) 13:34, 14 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, just let it expire. Good point though. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 00:27, 18 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]