Individual Variations in Vergence and Accommodation Responses Following Virtual Reality Gameplay

Virtual reality (VR) can challenge the visual system, leading to temporary oculomotor changes, though the degree of change varies among individuals. While the vergence and accommodation system plays a crucial role in VR perception, it remains unclear whether individuals whose visual functions fall outside clinical norms experience larger changes. Thus, our study aimed to investigate whether changes in vergence and accommodation responses following VR gameplay differ between individuals with and without non-strabismic binocular and accommodative disorders. To assess this, both subjective and objective measurements were conducted before and after 20 min of playing Beat Saber. Results revealed significant alterations across both subjective measurements-near point of convergence and near point of accommodation-and objective measurements, including eye refraction, accommodation lag, and accommodative microfluctuations at far. Moreover, individuals with non-strabismic binocular and accommodative disorders exhibited larger accommodative microfluctuations at far compared to the control group. Overall, these findings indicate that considering individual differences in vergence and accommodation responses is important when evaluating the impact of VR on the visual system and can be helpful in the design and use of VR systems, particularly for individuals with binocular and accommodative disorders.