On the Stiles-Crawford effect and ocular imagery.

To study the modifying effect on spherical aberration of the retinal directional sensitivity (the Stiles-Crawford effect), ocular imagery was simulated by computer ray-tracing in a phakic and a pseudophakic model eye. The Stiles-Crawford effect was found to reduce the distance between the paraxial focus and the effective least blur focus. The modifying effect on spherical aberration was found to be insignificant for pupil sizes below 4 mm, and to increase in magnitude above this size. For an 8 mm pupil, the effective focus was found to move 0.3 mm and 0.2 mm toward the paraxial focus for the phakic and the pseudophakic eye, respectively. This corresponded to a shift of 1.0 D and 0.6 D in the spectacle plane, respectively. The modifying effect of the retinal directional sensitivity should be taken into account in the theory of ocular refraction and in objective keratometry and refractometry.