In a receiver operable in response to a data signal, an eye aperture size is detected along a time axis by an eye aperture detection circuit and is controlled by a control circuit so that it becomes a maximum. The eye aperture detection circuit determines different decision time points of the same level arranged along a time axis and judges whether or not an error is caused to occur at each of the decision time points, so as to detect the eye aperture size and to produce detection results. The control circuit processes the detection results in accordance with a predetermined algorithm to successively vary the eye aperture size and to keep the data signal at an optimum amplitude.