The effect of target proximity on the aniso-accommodative response

Aniso-accommodation (unequal binocular accommodation) to lens-induced anisometropia has been demonstrated by subjective and objective measurement techniques (Marran and Schor, Vision Res. 38(22), 3601-3619). The gain of the response was significantly reduced for some subjects when aniso-accommodation was stimulated by a target at 1 m compared to a target at 20 cm, even when the targets viewed were matched in retinal image size, convergence levels and aniso-accommodative stimuli. The two conditions did differ in both the accommodative level and proximity of the target. Thus the higher gain of the response in the 20 cm condition could have arisen from either high proximity, high accommodative level or a combination of both. In this investigation, target proximity and accommodative level were manipulated independently while extra-retinal cues such as absolute disparity and image size were held constant. The results show that high target proximity alone rather than accommodative level or a combination of the two was responsible for the distance dependent effect demonstrated by subjects. Furthermore, accommodative level did not affect the response when target proximity was held constant. Subjects who demonstrated invariant aniso-accommodation with changes in viewing distance also demonstrated invariant aniso-accommodation with experimental manipulation of target proximity at the target distances tested, as would be expected. These results suggest that high level processing, rather than a reflex blur response, is involved in aniso-accommodation. This conclusion is strengthened by the previous finding of long reaction and response times, 11 and 15 s respectively, to step aniso-accommodative stimuli (Marran and Schor, Vision Res. 38(22), 3601-3619). Since the experimental target provided subjects with visual feedback of the relative blur of the dichoptically viewed letters, subjects had access to perceptual blur information cues. Some subjects seemed to have required both aniso-blur and proximity to exercise this volitional response. Those subjects who showed a distance invariant aniso-accommodative response may have been able to use perceived aniso-blur alone and their ability to disregard proximal cues may have resulted from greater experience with the aniso-accommodative stimuli. Alternatively, these subjects may have had a lower threshold to proximal stimuli and experienced target proximity at the more distant (1 m) viewing condition.