Whether or not unilateral occipital damage produces sparing of central
vision, namely macular sparing, is controversial. We tested two subje
cts with left occipital lesions by means of fundus perimetry combined
with fundus image analysis. This method made it possible to measure th
e distance of the stimulus projected on the retina from the foveal cen
tre defined as the centre of the foveal reflex. The results indicated
that macular sparing, if it exists, must be less than 0.4-degrees wide
. Two of the four eyes during the stimulus presentation often but not
always showed eccentric fixation of a small magnitude, whose mean was
less than 0.6-degrees from the foveal centre in the right hemiretina.