Binocular coordination during scanning of simple dot stimuli

We examined the influence of a variety of visual factors on binocular coordination during saccadic orienting. Some experimental conditions placed similar demands on the oculomotor system as those that occur during reading, but in the absence of linguistic processing. We examined whether saccade target extent, preceding saccade magnitude, preceding saccade direction, and parafoveal availability of saccade target influenced fixation disparity. Disparities similar in magnitude and frequency to those obtained in previous binocular reading experiments occurred. Saccade magnitude had a robust influence upon fixation disparities. The results are very similar to those obtained in investigations of binocular coordination during reading, and indicate that similar patterns occur during reading-like eye scanning behaviour, in the absence of linguistic processing.