What is Empty Field Myopia?

• A. Eye must be stimulated or will rest; correction by looking at aircraft wingtips
• B. Eye fatigue leads to reduced vision
• C. Eye must be stimulated by bright light at all times
• D. Resting eyes improves depth perception

Answer: (A)

Empty field myopia happens when the visual field is featureless, so the eyes aren’t stimulated to maintain distance focus. As a result, the eye’s accommodation tends to relax, causing a myopic shift that makes distant objects harder to see. The way to counter this is to deliberately stimulate the eyes by focusing on a distant reference point—such as the horizon or an aircraft’s wingtips—to keep the eyes properly focused at distance and maintain clear distance vision. This specific phenomenon isn’t about general eye fatigue, brightness of light, or simply resting the eyes; those ideas don’t address why distant vision can blur in an empty field and how to correct it.