Eye Dominance

Did you know that you have a dominant eye? Surprise, you do! And no, it's not necessarily the same as your dominant hand. I'm right-handed and left-eyed. The term is ocular dominance, and refers to the brain's preference of visual input from one eye over the other.

How To: Test Eye Dominance

1) Hold your hands at eye level in front of you, thumbs and forefingers touching. Your hands should be vertical, as if your hands are pushed against a wall.

2) Move your hands closer together, so that the triangle formed by your thumbs and fingers has gotten to be about the size of a quarter.

3) With both eyes open, focus on an object in the distance through the triangle.

4) Now close your left eye. Can you still see the object you focused on? Congrats, you're right-eyed. If you can't see the object, you're left-eyed. Just to make sure. Reopen your left eye and close your right eye. What do you see? If the object is no longer in your field of vision, you have confirmation that you are in fact right-eyed. If you can still see it, congratulations, you are one of the rare people who do not have a dominant eye.

Roughly 2/3 of the population is right-eye dominant. A small percentage of people show no eye-dominance, however that still leaves us with about 1/3 of people being left-eye dominant.

What this means: if you shoot bows and arrows or guns, you might need to change what side you shoot from. For archery, you'll hold the bow with your right hand and pull back on the string with your left. It allows you to aim better. For shooting guns, you may want to adjust your stance so that your right foot is is front and your left arm is straight, using your right hand to steady the gun.

An interesting fact about people who have left-eye dominance is that there seems to be a correlation between people who suffer from with migraines (particularly auras) and left-eye dominance. (1)

And for something fun (thanks to BF for introducing me to this):

"I shake my ears back and forth"

1) Aygül R, Dane S, Ulvi H., Handedness, eyedness, and crossed hand-eye dominance in male and female patients with migraine with and without aura: a pilot study. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16158700>