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How To Determine Eye Dominance

By Troy Bedinghaus, O.D., About.com

Updated: November 8, 2007

About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by Kate Grossman, MD

Most people have a dominant eye, or one eye that works a little bit harder than the other. Even though you use both eyes to look at an object, you use your dominant eye more.

Eye dominance is important for certain sports which require accurate aim. If you are considering monovision correction to reduce the need for reading glasses or bifocals, your eye dominance will need to be considered. Here's a quick way to determine your eye dominance.

Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: A few seconds

Here's How:

  1. Extend your arms in front of you with your palms facing away.

  2. Bring your hands together, forming a small hole by crossing the thumbs and fore fingers.

  3. Choose a small object about 10 feet away from you. With both eyes open, focus on the object as you look through the small hole.

  4. Close one eye and then the other. One of the eyes should see the object move, or jump to the side.

  5. The eye that sees the object move is the dominant eye.

Tips:

  1. Hand-dominance does not always correlate with eye-dominance.

  2. Most people automatically use their dominant eye when looking through a camera eyehole or a telescope.

What You Need:

  • Your arms and hands
  • A target about 10 feet away

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