Abstract:
The inventive method compensates for blinks occurring during examination of the eye by an objective refractor. An analog signal is produced as a function of the focus of a light pattern reflected from the eye, and the signal is processed and fed to an analyzer for determining the refractive error of the eye. The input to the analyzer is delayed to follow the analog signal by a predetermined delay. Meanwhile, any rate of change of the analog signal exceeding a predetermined thresh-hold is detected to represent the beginning of a blink, and a blink commencement signal is produced and used to stop the examination of the eye for a predetermined blink interval exceeding the expected duration of the blink. Also, the analyzer ignores the portion of the analyzer input devoted to the blink interval.