Is it possible to tell if a person has crossed eyes based on the reflection of light off their pupils in photographs?
SEP 13, 2018
Question:
Is it possible to tell if a person has crossed eyes based on the reflection of light off their pupils in photographs? I've been looking at photos of people on the web, and sometimes I find that the reflected light is not 100 percent similarly positioned in the same location within their pupils. Their eye alignment looks normal though. Does this mean these people are cross-eyed or is this Hirschberg test not useful in this situation?
Answer:
Clinicians use the corneal light reflexes to judge the eye alignment, often called the Hirschberg test. This test is a good approximation but not perfect in the way you note. In a normal eye, the corneal light reflex is, as you note, not quite in the center, but rather slightly displaced toward the nose.