Eye preference in humans and its correlation with eye dominance, visual acuity and handedness

Abstract: Handedness is the most obvious expression of lateralized behaviour in humans. However, there is only limited knowledge about other forms of lateralized behaviour, e.g. preferential use of an eye and whether these may correlate with handedness. Thus to investigate this, 100 subjects (50 males and 50 females) between 11 and 80 years of age were assessed for their eye preference, eye dominance, visual acuity, and handedness. Eye preference was assessed by performing four different monocular tasks, eye dominance by performing the binocular Dolman test, visual acuity was assessed with a Snellen chart and handedness was surveyed using the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. Regarding eye preference, the right eye was preferred by 69% of the subjects. 90 % of the subjects were consistent for their preferred eye across all four tasks. 66% of the subjects had a dominant right eye, 33% had left eye dominance and 1% could not be assessed using the Dolman test. 56% of the subjects differed in their visual acuity between both eyes, while 43% had the same visual acuity in both of their eyes. 86% of the subjects were right-handed while 4% were left handed and 10% were ambidextrous. Significant correlations were found between visual acuity and eye preference and between visual acuity and eye dominance. The study also found a positive correlation between handedness and eye preference. These results support the notion that there is a weak correlation between the different aspects of lateralized behaviour in humans.