Changes in the Coupling between Accommodation and Vergence Eye Movements Induced in Human Subjects by Altering the Effective Interocular Separation

It has usually been thought that the coupling between accommodation and convergence of the eyes is fixed and not modifiable by experience. Experiments are reported which show that the ratio of accommodative vergence to the accommodation stimulus, the stimulus AC/A ratio (one measure of the coupling), is elevated by brief periods (∼30 min) of experience of viewing the world through periscopic spectacles which increase the effective interocular separation. Experience of viewing through ‘cyclopean’ spectacles, which superimpose the line of sight of the two eyes, reduced the stimulus AC/A ratio in one subject and increased it in another, while it remained hardly affected in a third.