Factors influencing accommodative adaptation

Previous studies have ascertained that a broad range of parameters have the facility to induce or modify accommodative adaptation, i.e., the post-task shift in dark accommodation (DA) which may be observed after a period of sustained fixation. This paper reviews the optical (i.e., related to a change in the form of the retinal image) and nonoptical (i.e., independent of the composition of the retinal image) stimuli which can influence the degree of adaptation. It is concluded that DA probably represents an aggregate response resulting from multiple inputs whose interactions may be too complex to allow the isolation and measurement of any single nonoptical component. Accordingly, the exact mechanism of accommodative adaptation remains unclear at the present time.