Monocular diplopia accompanying ordinary refractive errors.

Monocular diplopia is commonly encountered in ophthalmic practice. We discovered that it could be induced in nine (82%) of 11 normal eyes with ordinary spherical or astigmatic defocus of the retinal image. Possible mechanisms responsible for this effect include retinal processing, diffraction effects, and spherical aberration. By employing geometric blur circle theory and using a simple optical model to photograph the effect, we concluded that monocular diplopia in the setting of ordinary refractive error is secondary to relatively minor optical irregularity such as spherical aberration. Contour enhancement properties of the retina probably accentuate this effect. Ordinary refractive error should therefore not be overlooked or discounted in patients with monocular diplopia.