Accommodative responses to conflicting stimuli.

In this study we examined the monocular accommodative response when subjects (N = 12) simultaneously viewed two overlapping, horizontally and vertically oriented targets located at disparate dioptric distances from the observer. The proximal and distal stimuli were located at dioptric levels of 5 and 3, 3 and 1, or 5 and 1 D, respectively. A broad spectrum of individual responses was observed for all target conditions. Additionally, a significant correlation was observed between the accommodative response when the ambiguous targets were viewed and the response found in the absence of a blur stimulus to accommodation. This finding suggests that when conflicting information is provided to a particular component of accommodation, the relative importance of that component in the determination of the aggregate accommodative response is attenuated.