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When a fix for one vision problem causes another

Aging diminishes the ability of the eyes to focus up close. New Penn research reports that monovision, a common prescription lens correction to mitigate this issue, can cause dramatic misperceptions of depth and 3D direction for objects in motion.
July 25, 2019
Aging Devices Neuroscience Presbyopia Refractive Errors
Basic Research
Grantee

As we age, our eyes lose their ability to focus up close. It’s a condition called presbyopia, and it’s both extremely common and relatively easy to fix, with solutions like reading glasses, bifocals, or progressive lenses.

A team from the University of Pennsylvania and the Institute of Optics in Madrid recently discovered that monovision can cause dramatic misperceptions of the distance and 3D direction of moving objects. What’s more, the farther away the objects are and the faster they move, the larger the misperceptions become.