are you wondering which eye is your dominant eye i'm going to show you three different ways that
i use in the clinic all the time but you can do this at home to see if your left eye or right eye
dominant let's focus in hey howdy everybody this is dr neal guymon, dr eyeguy, with a channel that
keeps your eyes healthy and your vision clear now knowing which eye your dominant eye is can
actually be pretty important for many different things for example sports baseball golf shooting
archery or for photography or as an eye doctor knowing for our patients which either dominant
eye is can be pretty important the first test and this is probably one of the most common ones that
you'll see is called the miles test now for this test you're going to want to focus on a distant
object now this can be a light switch a doorknob a like button or a light bulb for this video i'm
going to use this light bulb for the distant object and to get ready you're going to make a
small little opening with your hands almost a triangle shaped opening in your hands and you
want to make it just big enough to fit that distant object that you're going to look at
make sure it's not too big so you can look through it for with both eyes you want it
small enough just to fit that distant object now you're going to look at and focus on that
distant object make sure both eyes are open and make sure you don't move your head side to side
and now naturally and pretty quickly you want to line up that distant object into the small
opening that you've made with your hands now once you have it lined up in that opening you're
going to close one eye for example i'm going to close my left eye and if that object is still
in the opening in your hands then you're looking through your dominant eye if you close an eye and
all of a sudden that object is either behind your hands or off to the side it's not in the opening
then you're looking through your non-dominant eye now there's also another way to do this if
you can't close one eye you're going to still look at the distant object with both eyes open
line up the object in the opening and then you're going to slowly bring your hands closer to your
eyes keep that target within that opening the whole time and eventually once you get close
enough you'll get to your dominant eye test number two is called the porta test or you
can think of it as the pointing test this is very similar to the miles test you're going to
pick a distant object looking at it with both eyes open corrected for the distance and you're
going to point at that object now when you point at the object you actually want to cover that
object with your finger or you can also use your thumb but make sure that your finger is covering
the object now this one might be a little bit tricky because when you're actually pointing at
the object you're going to notice two faint images of your finger or your thumb so when you actually
point at the object you want to do this naturally and kind of quickly you want to cover that object
with one of those faint images now you want to do the same thing you did before you want to
close one eye and if that object is still behind your finger or your thumb then you're looking
through your dominant eye if you cover an eye and notice that your finger is not covering the object
anymore it's off to the side then you're looking through your non-dominant eye and also similar to
the first test if you can't close one eye then you can slowly bring your finger closer to your eye
keeping that object behind your finger and eventually you will be pointing at your dominant
eye now before we get to test three i'm definitely curious comment below if you've done these tests
which eye is your dominant eye i'm guessing most people are going to say they're right eye dominant
now this third test is also pretty common but it might be a little bit trickier to do at home but
i'm still going to show you a way to do it this test is called the lens blur test or the plus
magnification test and just like the first two tests you want both eyes using their distance
vision correction so if you wear glasses for distance you want to be wearing your distance
glasses and just like the other tests you're going to be looking at a distant object and you're going
to hold a plus magnification lens over one eye and then the other one now here's what you're
looking for in this one the eye that is more significantly visually affected is your dominant
eye for example i'm right eye dominant and when i put this lens over my right eye i notice that
my vision is definitely more blurry it's way more uncomfortable than when i have it over my left eye
when i have it over my left eye it's still blurry but i still can manage it still seems clearer less
uncomfortable than when it's over my right eye because i'm right eye dominant now you can also
do this at home if you happen to have a pair of readers or cheaters that you can get from
the store now the power that you want to look for is a plus 1.5 or a plus two that's usually
commonly what we use in the clinic but if you don't have those readers then you can also do this
at the store so the next time you're in walmart or walgreens definitely head for the cheaters
section and pick a 1.5 or a plus 2 off of the rack now remember you want to be wearing your distance
glasses your distance correction when you're doing this test and you can do this right in the store
if you just pick a distant object you're going to just use one side of those cheaters one lens
and cover one eye at a time and then just remember whichever eye is more significantly affected maybe
your vision's more blurry when you do it on that eye it's more uncomfortable that is your dominant
eye because your dominant eye doesn't want to be messed with now just a few tidbits about eye
dominance now there are actually a few different types of eye dominance that we can go over
one is called motor dominance or whichever eye is less likely to lose concentration or lose the
target when something's moving that is going to be your more motor dominant eye and along with that
you can have a siding dominance whichever eye is going to be your siding dominant eye when you want
to lock onto a target really fast that's going to be your siding dominant eye and another one could
be sensory dominance if you have one eye that sees better than the other eye maybe is stronger or has
less of a prescription that can be your sensory dominant eye now usually one eye is your dominant
eye that covers all those different traits it could be the motor siding sensory dominant eye
but it is possible to have a mixed dominance you might have one eye that could be your sensory
dominant eye but then your other eye could be your siding eye and so you'll have a mixed dominance
there also along the same lines of thinking usually if you're right handed you're going to
be right eye dominant if you're left-handed you're going to be left eye dominant but that could be
crossed some people can be right-handed and then be left-eye dominant that's called
dominance it's also possible kind of rare to not have a dominant eye which could be pretty nice
depending on the situation also something to be aware of is some people might have their
eye dominance change depending on the situation or depending on the scenario for example most
people are right eye dominant but depending on the scenario like lighting conditions or
if you're looking at a distant object compared to a near object it might switch over to the left eye
being the dominant eye so i definitely recommend testing your eyes multiple times use all three
different tests use different scenarios maybe look at a far distant object and maybe an intermediate
object different lighting conditions just to see if your eye dominance is different depending on
the condition now remember if you're looking for more eye related tips definitely check out my
videos right there also consider subscribing i'm dr. neal guymon, dr eyeguy stay focused