The Difference Between Vision & Sight
People often do not realize they have a vision problem because their eyesight is 20/20 or better. However, you can have flawless eyesight and poor vision at the same time. In fact, vision and eyesight are different things.
Eyesight refers to the information your eyes gather. When we test your eyesight, we are testing how near or far your eyes can focus, the clarity of your vision, and how well you can see in different kinds of light.
Conversely, vision refers to how well your eyes can transmit information and how your brain interprets that data. For example, if a person with 20/20 vision has eyes that do not align properly, their brain will receive two overlapping images rather than one complete image. We call this double vision.
Rather than try to interpret two images at the same time, the brain will start to ignore one eye, and only accept information from the other eye. As a result, this person will have a limited field of vision with poor depth perception and spatial awareness.
In this example, both eyes are gathering quality information, meaning they each individually have good eyesight. However, the eyes and the brain are not communicating correctly, which causes a vision problem.
