Childhood visual experience affects adult voluntary ocular motor control.

Purpose: To quantify the effects of childhood visual experience/chronic visual deprivation upon adult voluntary ocular motor control.

Methods: Eye movements of blind and sighted adults were elicited and videotaped in total darkness. The videotaped responses were digitized using an eye tracker, yielding data from 10 congenitally blind (infantile onset, blindness before age 1 year), 16 adventitiously blind, and 9 sighted persons.