How good your eyesight is isn’t just about the physiology of your eyes – it’s also about your mindset

Researchers, led by Ellen Langer at Harvard University, have recently investigated the idea that many of our limits are of our own making, by studying the effects of mindset on something most people would assume was fixed: eye sight.

One experiment made use of the common belief that pilots have good eyesight. Students in the ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) were given army fatigues to wear, and instructed to fly in a flight simulator. After doing some simple flight maneuvers, they did an eyesight test by reading markings on the wings of planes in front of them. In fact these were lines from an eye chart. A control group of ROTC students also wore the uniform, but they were informed the simulator was broken, and that they should pretend to fly the plane. The participants in the experiment who had performed like pilots, as opposed to those who just pretended, saw a full 40 percent better!

These findings suggest that even visual acuity – how sharp your vision is – can be influenced by your mindset. Because this is true, your vision can be improved by psychological means – for instance by having confidence in your visual abilities, or learning to believe you can see better. The research is part of a larger inquiry into the psychology of possibility. Langer’s lab questions how many of our limits are of our own making. There are clear implications for intelligence – a trait like eye sight that many believe is fixed in stone.

Belief in your capacity to improve your intelligence may facilitate the known effects of intelligence increasing training programs such as HighIQPro. While the experimental results demonstrating the significant gains in fluid intelligence as a result of training with our software did not depend on belief in the possibility of change, this kind of belief may enhance the observed effects. This study needs to be done!