Instrumentation designed to simulate the effects of prisms used in studies of visual rearrangement

A system is described which simulates some of the visual rearrangements and changes in sensorimotor relations that occur when experimental subjects move their eyes while looking through a contact lens with a prism attached. The simulated system is more convenient than a system based on the use of a contact lens, and it is based on measures of eye movement that are important in research on the perceptual effects of visual rearrangement. The effects that occur are reviewed in this paper. We also show in detail how the artificial system, which has an eye movement monitor interfaced with a computer and display, simulates the former effects. The data show that experimental subjects who experience visual rearrangement by simulated means manifest the same kind of perceptual adaptation produced in studies in which visual rearrangement is generated by means of a prism mounted on a contact lens.