Assessment of stereopsis in human infants.

A new method for testing stereopsis in infants is described for use in the early assessment of binocular function. Four 6- and 12-month-old infants were presented with a dynamic random-element stereogram generated on a color television monitor. A stereoscopic form was moved laterally, either left or right, to elicit the visual attention of the infant. An observer, unaware of the direction of form movement, made a forced-choice judgment of the direction of form displacement based on information gleaned from observations of the infant's behavior. The observer's performance for all three age groups exceeded chance levels of responding (p < 0.001). Individual infants within each age group also provided strong evidence of stereopsis. The applicability of the method for the screening of binocular anomalies is discussed.