Isovergence surfaces: the conjugacy of vertical eye movements in tertiary positions of gaze

Conjugate gaze is often defined as the equal angle rotation of the two eyes. For fixation at far distances, the optical axes are parallel and conjugacy is defined irrespective of the coordinate system. For nearby or finite fixation distances, the evaluation of conjugacy for many gaze postures depends on the coordinate system used to measure it. For example, if the eye is elevated or depressed and the eye is rotated about a vertical axis, the intersections of lines of sight with a tangent screen will describe either straight lines for arcs depending on whether the vertical axis is fixed with respect to the head or to the eye. Because of the horizontal separation of the two eyes, the binocular fixation of near targets at tertiary positions of gaze will require a vertical vergence component for head-referenced but not eye-referenced measurements. The vertical gaze alignment of three human subjects was measured as they viewed targets placed at secondary and tertiary eye positions at two different distances. Vertical vergence was either held open or closed-loop. The lines of sight were found lo intersect (i.e. vertical gaze was aligned) regardless of target position or viewing condition.