Eyeglasses, height, and lateral eye movements

Conformity to the lateral eye movement patterns of (1) a preferred direction in a face-to-face situation and (2) direction contralateral to the cerebral hemisphere tapped by a question in a nonface-to-face situation was studied in forty right-handed male college students in four groups: (1) Normal vision (N = 10), (2) Nearsighted wearing glasses full-time (N = 10), (3) Nearsighted wearing contact lenses (N = 10), and (4) Nearsighted wearing glasses part-time (N = 10). Subjects were of normal weight with no familial left-handedness or psychiatric hospitalization and no ocular or visual problems other than nearsightedness. Ratings of eye movement direction were made from videotapes. Subjects wearing glasses full-time or part-time were significantly more likely than other subjects to show the contralateral eye movement pattern in the nonface-to-face situation (p less than 0.05). Tall subjects showed more up eye movements (p less than 0.05). These findings were interpreted as an effect of long-standing visual expectancies. Myopic subjects were significantly more likely to be left-lookers than right-lookers (p less than 0.05).