Errors in distance appreciation and binocular night vision.

Studying binocular vergence in relation to luminance levels, we isolated two types of behaviour which may explain differences in distance appreciation: 1. Underestimation of distances in subjects with overconvergence in darkness. 2. Overestimation of distances in subjects with underconvergence in darkness. Progression towards the limiting value of convergence varies from one individual to another for each mesopic and scotopic luminance level and for different experimental conditions: variable discrepancy between the observation distance and the tonic vergence distance; accommodative or fusional stimuli at varying degrees of eccentricity; mobile stimuli in the observer's peripheral field. The study of bipartition in depth of a given interval for different observation distances confirms the existence of two major categories of individuals. Over- or underestimation of the nearer subjective half correlates to the binocular dark convergence capacity of each individual. These findings may explain errors in distance appreciation for road users in night vision.