What is binocular vision?

Lisa Donaldson, Head of Eyecare, Clinical Lead Optometrist at SeeAbility explains what is meant by binocular vision, and how it affects are depth perception.

“Binocular vision is when you’re using your two eyes binocularly to focus on a target together. When you develop good binocular vision, you’ll have good depth perception.

When we shut one eye we still have some degree of depth perception because of monocular cues. For example, I know how big a target is so I can judge how far away it is, but theseare learnt cues.

Binocular vision is when we actually get two slightly disparate images one from each eye and our brain superimposes them to get really fine detailed depth perception.

You could call it stereo vision”

Key facts

• You are using two eyes binocularly together to focus on a target.
• Binocular vision is where someone gets two disparate images and puts them together.