Abstract
Concurrent mental activity seems to be a significant, nonvisual factor affecting the human accommodation response. Two experiments were conducted to determine the direction and magnitude of this accommodation response. Experiment 1 employed a concurrent, written backwards counting task. Experiment 2 employed a concurrent, mental imagery task of “thinking near” and “thinking far.” In both experiments, the concurrent secondary task effected a cumulative accommodative shift toward the visual far point of from .25 to .75 diopter away from a near (3.0 diopter) target. This accommodative shift was observed only in the presence of a stimulus field and not in open-loop (analogous to empty-field) conditions. In addition, a long-term instability in the open-loop method of obtaining the dark focus was observed. Similarities between this accommodative shift and the pupillary response are noted. The accommodation response is discussed in relationship to both an attention-sharing and an involuntary autonomic response model.
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This research was conducted while the first and third authors were guest workers at the NASA/Ames Research Center. All work was performed in fulfillment of the U.S. Air Force Systems Command’s Mobilization Augmentee Program. Portions of Experiment 1 are contained in the first author’s doctoral thesis, Oklahoma State University. Support was provided by funding from the Man-Vehicle Systems Research Division, NASA/Ames Research Center, the USAF/Rome Air Development Center, and from National Science Foundation Grant 74-20208 to the last author. However, no endorsement of any agency should be implied.
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Malmstrom, F.V., Randle, R.J., Bendix, J.S. et al. The visual accommodation response during concurrent mental activity. Perception & Psychophysics 28, 440–448 (1980). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03204888
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03204888