Major article
Results of ocular dominance testing depend on assessment method

Presented in part at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, May 2006.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaapos.2008.01.017Get rights and content

Purpose

We developed a near ocular dominance test modeled after the distance hole-in-the-card test and assessed both test-retest reliability of four tests of ocular dominance and agreement between tests.

Methods

Forty-six subjects aged 18 to 78 years with visual acuity 20/40 or better in each eye were enrolled from a primary care practice. All subjects had normal eye examinations, with the exception of refractive error, and were examined in their habitual correction. Subjects were tested twice each with the distance hole-in-the-card test, new near hole-in-the-card test, near convergence test, and the Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group fixation preference test.

Results

There was excellent test-retest reliability for each ocular dominance test. Nevertheless, there was only moderate to slight agreement between each possible pairing of tests.

Conclusions

Results of ocular dominance tests vary depending on both the testing distance and the specific activity performed as part of the testing procedure.

Section snippets

Subjects

Institutional review board approval was obtained for the testing protocol and procedures. Each subject provided informed consent and the study was compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Subjects were recruited during a well-eye examination at a general eye clinic. All subjects had a normal complete eye examination, with the exception of refractive error, if present, and were tested in their habitual correction, if applicable. Forty-six subjects, aged 18 to 78

Subject Demographics

Forty-six subjects between the ages of 18 and 78 years (median age, 42.5 years) were enrolled. Seventy-two percent (33 of 46) were women. Visual acuity ranged from 20/20 to 20/40 (median, 20/20) at distance and 20/15 to 20/40 (median, 20/20) at near. Ninety-six percent (44 of 46) of the subjects were white.

Questions on Dominance and Handedness

Right eye dominance was reported by 57% (26 of 46) of the subjects (in response to the question, “Which is your dominant eye?”). Over half of the subjects (27 of 46) reported that they would

Discussion

We found excellent test-retest reliability for each ocular dominance test. Nevertheless, there was only moderate to slight agreement between each possible pairing of tests and moderate to poor agreement between each possible pairing of tests with questions. The poor agreement between tests appears to be the result of differences in testing distance and in the specific activity performed with each test, and raises several issues regarding the uses of ocular dominance tests in clinical practice.

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This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants EY015799 and EY011751 (JMH), Research to Prevent Blindness, Inc., New York, NY (JMH as Olga Keith Weiss Scholar and an unrestricted grant to the Department of Ophthalmology, Mayo Clinic), and the Mayo Foundation, Rochester, MN.

This study was conducted in the Department of Ophthalmology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN.

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

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