Monovision: a review of the scientific literature

We reviewed the scientific literature on monovision to compare the visual p erformance of monovision patients with that of others wearing more traditio nal prescriptions. We found that visual performance of monovision patients was comparable to that of control patients wearing a balanced binocular cor rection, provided that reading adds were not greater than about +2.5 D, tha t illumination was photopic, and that stimuli were presented at supra-thres hold levels. Under these conditions, monovision patients were satisfied wit h their perceptual experience and performed within 2 to 6% of balanced bino cular control patients on a range of occupational tasks. It is noteworthy t hat monovision patients had relatively more difficulty with acuity-based ta sks than with tasks demanding good depth perception. With reading adds over +2.5 D, at low levels of illumination, or with near-threshold level stimul i, visual performance of monovision patients was reduced compared with cont rols. Subjectively, under low levels of illumination, monovision patients e xperienced problems with glare and halos around point sources of light.