If Listing's planes did not rotate during vergence.

You would see this:
  • when the eyes looked up the image of the horizontal line in the right eye would turn counter-clockwise relative to the image on the left eye.
  • when the eyes looked down, the relative rotations would be reversed.

This is an elevation dependent torsional disparity.

If Listing's plane rotated by as much as vergence, the two lines would remain parallel independent of eye elevation.


Copyright © 1996 Tutis Vilis and Douglas Tweed
University of Western Ontario
London Ontario Canada
Updated October 28, 2005

Comments welcome. Email to tutis.vilis@schulich.uwo.ca