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To cite this article: Thurmon E. Lockhart & Wen Shi (2010) Effects of age on dynamic
accommodation, Ergonomics, 53:7, 892-903, DOI: 10.1080/00140139.2010.489968
Visual accommodation plays a critical role in one’s visual perception and activities of daily living. Age-related
accommodation loss poses an increased risk to older adults’ safety and independence. Although extensive effort has
been made towards understanding the effect of age on steady-state accommodation, dynamic aspects of
accommodation is still unknown. A study was therefore conducted to investigate age-related dynamic
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accommodative characteristics utilising a modified autorefractor. Ten individuals from each of three age groups (i.e.
younger group: 20 to 29 years old; middle-aged group: 40 to 49 years old; older group: 60 to 69 years old) were
recruited and their dynamic accommodation responses were examined. The laboratory experiment was designed to
assess dynamic accommodation associated with an abrupt change from a constant far target (400 cm, 50 cd/m2) to a
near target (70 cm, 100 cd/m2 or 20 cd/m2), which aimed to simulate car dashboard reading behaviour while driving.
The results of the study indicated that age and target intensity both had a significant impact on dynamic
accommodation. These effects were attributed to both the age-related physiological limitation of the eye as well as to
central neural processing delay. A method of measuring dynamic accommodation and the implications of the study
are discussed.
Statement of Relevance: The results of the study indicate that age and target intensity both have a significant impact
on dynamic accommodation. These effects are attributed to age-related physiological limitation of the eye as well as
central neural processing delay and to decreased sensitivity of the cone photoreceptors. To enhance the visual
performance of the ageing population involving dynamic accommodation, target distance and target light intensity
should be carefully evaluated to facilitate effective viewing.
Keywords: accommodation; ageing; autorefractor; dynamic accommodation; light intensity; vision
amplitude of static accommodation, which is defined factor). Among different aspects of light (e.g. intensity,
by the nearest and farthest points that the eye can chromaticity and duration), this paper focuses on the
focus on statically (Koretz et al. 1989, Ramsdale and effect of light intensity on age-related accommodation
Charman 1989, Glasser and Campbell 1998, Mordi loss. This is because the intensity of light directly
and Ciuffreda 1998). This measure, however, does not influences the accommodation process (Johnson 1976,
provide information regarding the transient nature of Rosenfield 1993, Arumi et al. 1997, Jackson et al. 1999)
dynamic viewing. Due to the lack of studies on and the majority of the efforts so far are dedicated to
dynamic accommodation, the time-varying aspects of the study of the static aspects of accommodation
age-related accommodation loss are not fully without inclusion of the age effect.
understood. Although a recent study conducted by In order to provide a better understanding of the
Mordi and Ciuffreda (2004) covered some of the effect of age on the dynamic accommodation process, a
dynamic aspects of accommodation and presbyopia study was therefore conducted to investigate the
(i.e. the microfluctuations of the accommodation dynamic accommodative characteristics of the eye
response), their investigation focused mainly on the under different lighting conditions. It was hypothesised
biomechanical aspects of the lens instead of the that the advancing of age and varying light intensity of
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dynamic characteristics of the accommodation the visual target would lead to the change of one’s
process. Some other attempts included Sun et al. dynamic accommodative performance due to
(1988) and Ciuffreda et al. (2000), both of which aimed accommodation-related physiological limitations of
to find the relationship between age and the time taken the ageing eye as well as central neural processing
by the eye to start accommodation (i.e. central neural delay.
processing delay as measured by the reaction time
(RT)). However, Sun et al. (1988) failed to find any
Methods
evidence for an increase in the RT with age, while
Ciuffreda et al. (2000) found a slight increase of the RT Participants
at a rate of 2.5 ms per year under similar test A total of 30 participants were recruited for the study,
conditions. The reasons for the mixed findings may 10 from each of three age groups: younger group (20–
be ascribed to: 1) the instrument being unable to 29 years old, mean age ¼ 24.1, SD ¼ 3.22); middle-
record time-dependent characteristics of dynamic aged group (40–49 years old, mean age ¼ 45.4,
accommodation; 2) the manual detection of the SD ¼ 3.13); older group (60–69 years old, mean
onset/offset of dynamic accommodation. As the age ¼ 64.9, SD ¼ 2.91). Informed consent was
measure of accommodation poses a high demand on approved by the Institutional Review Board of
the capability of the equipment and the handler, some Virginia Tech and was signed by all the participants.
of the instruments have shown their limitations on The participants did not have any eye disease or eye
measuring dynamic accommodation (mainly due to surgery and had normal vision in at least one of the
vulnerability to eye and head movements and to pupil eyes (20/20, corrected vision was acceptable only if
diameters) and through manual selection of the onset/ contact lenses were worn). Static visual acuity and
offset point of dynamic accommodation – which may standard colour blindness test (via a Bausch & Lomb1
result in failure to correctly determine these critical Vision Tester; New York, USA) and static contrast
points and thus restrict the comparability of different sensitivity test (via a Vistech1 Contrast Sensitivity
studies (Sun et al. 1988, Ciuffreda et al. 2000, Chart; Lebanon, Ohio, USA) were conducted as
Wolffsohn et al. 2001, Mordi and Ciuffreda 2004)). screening tests to ensure that each participant met the
Hence, the age-related effects of dynamic criteria of normal vision.
accommodative characteristics remain unresolved. In The number of participants in each age group was
order to provide a better understanding of the age- estimated based on the published data of dynamic
related dynamic accommodation process, the present accommodation (Sun et al. 1988, Ciuffreda et al. 2000,
study used a more reliable instrument (the Shin- Mordi and Ciuffreda 2004) to ensure that the sample
Nippon1 SRW 5000 autorefractor; Tokyo, Japan size was large enough to detect differences in
Wolffsohn et al. 2001) to record the time series data accommodation among younger, middle-aged and
of dynamic accommodation, as well as a replicable older individuals with high probability
mathematical technique for robust data processing. (power 4 0.70).
Moreover, as it is light that transmits external
stimuli that trigger the accommodation process (Hung
et al. 2002), a full investigation of the dynamic aspects Experiment arrangement
of accommodation has to consider both the effect of To assess the dynamic accommodative capabilities, a
age (intrinsic factor) and the effect of lighting (extrinsic mirror machine (Figure 1) was used to automatically
894 T.E. Lockhart and W. Shi
trigger the eye focus from a far target (4 m away from different light intensities, the Maltese cross was
the eyes) to a near target (Maltese cross (Figure 2) at displayed by a laptop with two light intensity levels:
70 cm away from the eyes). The choices of 4 m (0.25 100 cd/m2 and 20 cd/m2 (Lockhart et al. 2006).
Diopters (D)) and 0.7 m (1.5 D) were based on the
normal range of the focal point of the eyes when a
driver, for example, is looking forward (i.e. 0 D) or Test protocols
reading a display on the dashboard while driving (i.e. Before starting the formal session, each participant was
1.5 D) (Atsumi et al. 2004). The distance of 4 m (0.25 familiarised with the layout of the apparatus and the
D) was chosen to facilitate and represent a far target test procedures; that is, the change from the far target
without having to place the far target at an infinite to the near target triggered by the mirror machine was
distance (0 D). explained. Encouragements were given to the
The room was dark (i.e. no ambient lighting except participants when high quality records were produced
for the luminaries from the targets-scotopic – 5 lux). A (i.e. clear shift of eye focus from the far to the near
fixation board, which was part of the the Shin-Nippon targets) and the participants were discouraged from
1
SRW-5000 autorefractor equipment (Figure 2a), was blinking during the recording. The formal testing
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placed on a black wall 4 m away from the participant’s began after completing five training trials of focusing
eyes and acted as a constant far target with a fixed on targets. Training trials consisted of participants
luminance level of 50 cd/m2. The Maltese cross (near practising the shifting of the eye focus from a far target
target) was presented in two different light intensities to a near target. Presentation of target intensity levels
(Figure 2b). In order to trigger accommodation at was randomised and dynamic accommodation was
assessed twice in each light condition. A break of 1 min
was given to the participants after each light condition.
Figure 2. (a) The fixation board (dimensions are shown in mm); (b) the Maltese cross (the shadow area).
Ergonomics 895
measurement ring using the infrared light on to the ametropic (e.g. myopic or hyperopic), the eye will have
observer’s eye and measuring the refracted image by a certain value of spherical error as well as cylindrical
moving the Badal lens laterally to find the optimal error. Assuming there is no irregularity in terms of the
focus distance of the ring image on the retina. As the curvature of the cornea, the eye will have only
size and shape of the ring image is determined by spherical error (DD, Figure 3, top image) and the total
different eye conditions, the measure of the ring image refractive power of the eye becomes D0 þ DD. Since
provides the refractive prescriptions of the eye. the purpose of the Badal lens is to make the
A brief description of the linear relationship measurement ring signal be refracted on to the retina,
between the movement of the Badal lens and the the lens will move Dg so as to make the ring signal be
spherical refractive error is further provided to explain focused on the retina, which is 1/ D0 away from the
the dynamic accommodation measure. Given a normal cornea, instead of on a point that is 1/(D0 þ DD) away
(emmetropic) eye (Figure 3, bottom image) with D0 from the cornea due to the unchanged position of the
total refractive power when looking at infinity, the Badal lens. Because the size of the measurement ring
Badal lens is located at a position where the measure- image projected into the eye is very small (52.9 mm)
ment ring is projected accurately on the retina and the (Wolffsohn et al. 2001), it is assumed here that when
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refractive prescriptions for this eye are zero spherical entering the cornea, the measurement ring signal
error (0 D) and zero cylindrical error. At this position, projected by the autorefractor has a fixed refractive
there is a relationship between b1 and b2, as shown in index, no matter what size the ring is at that moment.
Figure 3, and they are equal due to the symmetry of the As a result, a1 ¼ a2, and a ¼ L*F*g0, a’ ¼
ring image. As a result, tan (b1) ¼ tan (b2) and L/(1/ L*F*(g0 þ Dg). Thus,
F) ¼ a/g0, where L is the radius of the ring signal
before entering the Badal lens, F is the power of the a L F g0
tan ða1 Þ ¼ ¼ ð1Þ
Badal lens, a is the radius of the ring signal before 1=ðD0 þ DDÞ 1=ðD0 þ DDÞ
entering the polarised filter and g0 is the distance
between the focal point of the Badal lens and the a0 L F ðg0 þ DgÞ
tan ða2 Þ ¼ ¼ ð2Þ
polarised filter. Thus, L/(1/F) ¼ a/g0 and a ¼ L*F*g0, 1=D0 1=D0
which is also the radius value for the ring signal before
entering the cornea. tan ða1 Þ ¼ tan ða2 Þ ð3Þ
Since the normal eye has D0 total refractive power,
the distance between the cornea and the retina should g0
Dg ¼ DD ð4Þ
be approximately 1/D0. If the normal eye becomes D0
Figure 3. The relationship between the Badal lens and the spherical refractive error.
896 T.E. Lockhart and W. Shi
According to Equation (4), there is a linear results of the various studies. Thus, in order to
relationship between the movement of the Badal lens overcome the weakness of manual selection, a more
(Dg) and the spherical refractive error (DD). robust mathematical technique was implemented to
In order to provide continuous time series data process the raw data. This procedure facilitated
showing the dynamic accommodation, the ‘sales mode’ objective detection of the critical points (which are
menu of the autorefractor instrument was altered to set shown in Figure 4).
the ‘Ref. Led’ from ‘Auto’ to ‘On’, which gave Specifically, a fourth order Savitzky-Golay filter
continuous illumination of the measurement ring and was applied to the raw data to smooth the data (using
collection of the reflected ring image (Wolffsohn et al. a sliding window (2 60 þ 1 points)). After obtaining
2001). The instrument sampled the reflected ring image the smoothed data, the onset and offset of
at a frequency of 60 Hz, which was collected by a accommodation was determined mathematically via a
Pentium IV 2.40 GHz PC with a National Instruments velocity curve. The speed of the focus of the eye during
(NI) PCI-1407 image acquisition card (National accommodation was calculated by dividing the
Instruments, Austin, TX, USA) via the output panel differences between one preceding and one succeeding
of the autorefractor. The ring images were then the SEV by the time interval between them (i.e.
instantaneous focal velocity: 2 1/60s)). The lower
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Figure 4. Sample accommodation processes associated with different age groups (younger ¼ 20–29 years; middle-aged ¼
40–49 years; older ¼ 60–69 years), including the trigger, onset and offset points as defined by their velocity curves. The
fitted curves in the three upper graphs represent the time-varying nature of accommodation from a far target to a near target
as measured by spherical equivalent (SE).
each dependent variables (i.e. MOA, RT, RTI and In addition to the age effect, the study also found
PV). an effect of light intensity on dynamic accommodation
(Tables 1 and 2). The results are not only aligned with
those of previous studies regarding the amplitude of
Results accommodation under low light intensities (Johnson
In general, the study indicated that age and target 1976, Rosenfield 1993, Arumi et al. 1997, Jackson et al.
intensity affected accommodation processes signifi- 1999), but also indicate an adverse effect of low light
cantly (Tables 1 and 2). Aligned with the well- intensity on dynamic accommodative processes for all
documented findings of the age-related loss of the three age groups. Statistically significant differences
static amplitude of accommodation (Glasser and (p 5 0.05) due to light intensity were found in each of
Campbell 1998, Mordi and Ciuffreda 1998), MOA the dependent variables for all of the age groups. The
decreased with greater age (Table 1). As the accom- mean values shown in Table 1 consistently
modative demand (i.e. from 0.25 D to 1.5 D) was demonstrated that with decreased light intensity of the
within the younger and middle-aged participants’ target, the focus mechanism of the eye became
accommodative capability but beyond that of older reluctant to the stimulus for accommodation (with
participants, a more remarkable decline of MOA was larger RT and RTI and smaller PV and time%).
found in the results of the older adults’ accommodative
performance. In terms of the dynamic characteristics
Discussion
(Table 1), older adults exhibited greater delay in time
to start and finish accommodation (RT and RTI) and The effect of age on dynamic accommodation
lower speed of accommodation (PV) as compared with The effect of age on dynamic accommodation was
their younger and middle-aged counterparts. The demonstrated in this study. Clearly, with ageing,
ANOVA tests (Table 2) further indicated that there dynamic accommodative characteristics deteriorate
was a statistically significant age effect (p 5 0.05) in (i.e. decreased MOA, prolonged RT, response time and
each of the dependent variables. total accommodation time and reduced PV). An
898 T.E. Lockhart and W. Shi
Table 1. Results of each dynamic accommodative characteristic by target intensity and age group (mean + SD).
Target intensity Age group* MOA (D) RT (ms) RTI (ms/m) PV (D/s)
Bright Young 1.271 + 0.138 224 + 30 318 + 41 1.878 + 0.625
Middle 1.239 + 0.121 350 + 40 356 + 34 1.127 + 0.658
Old 0.244 + 0.121 423 + 55 438 + 107 0.550 + 0.273
Dark Young 1.003 + 0.171 252.304 + 38.252 369 + 39 1.568 + 0.541
Middle 0.77 + 0.167 411.235 + 48.038 421 + 41 0.752 + 0.412
Old 0.16 + 0.086 521.390 + 59.509 442 + 89 0.374 + 0.198
MOA ¼ magnitude of accommodation; RT ¼ reaction time; RTI ¼ response time index; PV ¼ peak velocity.
*Young ¼ 20–29 years; Middle ¼ 40–49 years; Old ¼ 60–69 years.
ANOVA
MANOVA MOA RT RTI PV
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MOA ¼ magnitude of accommodation; RT ¼ reaction time; RTI ¼ response time index; PV ¼ peak velocity.
*Significant effects: p 5 0.05.
apparent explanation is the physiological changes of dynamic accommodative performance may be viewed
the eye, including increased lenticular hardness and as a combination of the effects of ageing on the
decreased ciliary muscular tension. While the literature biomechanical structure of the eye and on the neurons
suggests that these changes can be considered as a involved in human visual perception.
major contributing factor to age-related accom- Another interesting finding on the effect of age
modation loss (Donders 1864, Duane 1912, Hofstetter on dynamic accommodation is that the variances of
1965, Ramsdale and Charman 1989, Mordi and MOA were relatively similar among the three age
Ciuffreda 1998), it is further speculated that the groups, while those of RT and RTI were inflated
increased RT for the accommodation response is with ageing, especially between the middle-aged
likely not primarily due to physiological limitations of group and the older-aged group (Table 1). This may
the eye, or to peripheral neuromuscular transmission suggest that the participants within each age group
delays, but rather to a delay in central higher-order had similar performance on how much they could
neural processing time. Specifically, neurons with a accommodate (i.e. MOA), but that the older group
signal proportional to viewing distance have been had larger variance in how long (i.e. RT and RTI) it
recorded in the mesencephalic reticular formation of took them to achieve a relatively similar performance
the rhesus monkey, just dorsal and lateral to the in MOA. The larger variances found in RT and RTI
oculomotor nucleus (Mays 1984, Judge and Cumming for the older group were consistent with larger
1986). Similarly, an accessory oculomotor nucleus was variances of performance in older age groups found
also found near the oculomotor nucleus in humans. in previous studies of age-related accommodation
This accessory parasympathetic cranial nerve nucleus loss (Duane 1912, Hofstetter 1965, Ramsdale and
of the oculomotor nerve is called the Edinger-Westphal Charman 1989). On the other hand, the similar
nucleus, which supplies preganglionic parasympathetic variances found in MOA might be ascribed to test
fibres to the eye, constricting the pupil and protocols, in that each participant was asked to
accommodating the lens (Jampel and Mindel 1967, accommodate as much as possible without a set end
Kourouyan and Horton 1997). It has been found that time. In other words, the study suggested that older
ageing may have an adverse effect on the performance adults with healthy eyes could accommodate to a
of this nucleus (Jampel and Mindel 1967, Ciuffreda similar extent but in a different duration. Future
et al. 2000), which may therefore have contributed to research should elucidate the causal factor on the
the age-related accommodation loss recorded in the time-varying accommodation characteristics of the
current study. In other words, the effect of age on the elderly population.
Ergonomics 899
contributions (Rucker and Kruger 2004). As the firing the results of the present study indicate the cone-
rate of cones declines with diminishing light intensity related neural processing deficit with ageing and its
(Roorda and Williams 1999, Schiffman 2005), cones impact on dynamic accommodation. Although
lose their sensitivity to images of different luminance implicated, further study is needed to quantify the
contrasts. Consequently, less amount of accommoda- interaction between age and cone degeneration on
tion stimulus is collected by cones and then transmitted dynamic accommodation. It should be noted that,
to the visual cortex via the luminance pathway. Hence, since all the participants were screened to ensure the
reduced accommodative power associated with dimin- healthiness of their eyes to facilitate the measure of
ishing intensity of light has been observed in previous dynamic accommodation via the autorefractor
studies (Johnson 1976, Rosenfield 1993, Jackson et al. (Wolffsohn et al. 2001), age-related ocular opacity,
1999). The decreased dynamic accommodative perfor- which may affect light transmittance, was considered
mance found in the present study also supported this to have minimal effect on the results of the present
argument (Table 1). However, as this study was the study. Future research might usefully include this
first one to include the effect of light intensity on the factor and assess its impact on dynamic
dynamic aspects of accommodation, only the RT accommodation.
under the dark condition (i.e. 20 cd/m2) may be
compared with other published results (Heron et al.
2002 with a target of 35 cd/m2 used; Mordi and Measure of dynamic accommodation
Ciuffreda 2004 with a target of 25 cd/m2 used). The RT In order to measure accommodation, a mirror machine
from the present study (395 + 121 ms) was similar to system (Figure 1) was designed to create an abrupt
those from the other studies in the dark condition change of targets at different distances. The system
(340 ms, Heron et al. 2002; 325– 530 ms, Mordi and included a rail system (track) to position targets of
Ciuffreda 2004). different characteristics at different distances or to
move them along the track. Thus, this system could be
utilised to access a variety of accommodative
The interaction effect between age and light intensity performance, including abrupt far-to-near/near-to-far
Advancing age has an adverse effect on the photo- accommodation, continuous far-to-near/near-to-far
receptors on the retina. That is, when one gets older, accommodation and dark focus (defined by the focal
the photoreceptors start to degenerate and lose their point of the eye in total darkness). Under each
functionality. The loss of rods begins first and is then accommodation scenario, the dynamic/temporal
followed by the loss of cones. Due to the accelerated aspects of accommodation can be evaluated via the use
loss of cones at older ages (Curcio et al. 1996), older of the modified autorefractor and LabVIEW image
adults, compared with younger and middle-aged analysis, which was first created by Wolffsohn et al.
counterparts, were expected to exhibit a more remark- (2001) and was proven to be appropriate in the present
able decline of the dynamic accommodative perfor- study.
mance. This decline was expected to differ at different Unlike previous published studies of dynamic
lighting conditions due to the light-related sensitivity accommodation (Sun et al. 1988, Ciuffreda et al. 2000,
of cones. Specifically, Table 1 indicates that a larger Mordi and Ciuffreda 2004), the present study was
decline in dynamic accommodative performance was facilitated by the development of a replicable
found between the middle-aged and older group than mathematical data-processing technique to robustly
900 T.E. Lockhart and W. Shi
analyse accommodative performances. Utilising the (Table 3). As the unit of Diopter is derived from the
Savitzky-Golay filtering technique, noise from high- reciprocal of a distance of 1 m, an amplitude of 9 D
frequency movement artefacts was removed from the indicates that the eye can accommodate from infinity
raw data while preserving abrupt level changes, which (1/0 ¼ infinity) to about 10 cm (1/9 ¼ 0.11). As such,
led to a clear accommodation response. After the normal range of the amplitude of accommodation
converting the smoothed accommodation response to found in related research (Table 3) suggests that both
a velocity curve, the onset and offset of an younger and middle-aged adults can accommodate at
accommodation were uniquely identified, eliminating least from 4 m to 70 cm, which is consistent with the
the use of subjective visual detection. As Savitzky- results of the present study. As for the results of the
Golay filtering utilises polynomial regression to find older group, their MOA was compared directly with
the best-fit curve at each original data point, by the normal range of the amplitude of accommodation
considering the surrounding data (i.e. the range of the for the elderly, in that the stimulus for accommodation
data is controlled by the size of the sliding window), a in the present study was expected to trigger the
larger window size (data points recorded in 2 s) was maximum amount of the accommodative ability for
used to remove high-frequency movement artefacts the older participants. Table 3 indicates that the results
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from the raw data. Furthermore, as the velocity data of the age-related changes of the MOA found in the
were derived from the filtered data, a narrower sliding present study were consistent with the literature.
window (data points recorded in 0.67 s) was necessary RT was also in agreement with those found in
for further smoothing. Both of the sliding windows previous investigations (Table 4). In spite of a variety
provided consistent data processing in the present of sample sizes and age ranges used in the other studies
study and resulted in dynamic accommodative (Sun et al. 1988, Ciuffreda et al. 2000, Heron et al.
characteristics that were comparable with published 2002), Table 4 suggests that the RTs measured in the
results. present study were fairly close to those documented in
the literature.
Table 3. Comparison of magnitude of accommodation (mean + SD) between the results of the present study and those in
published literature.
Age group Present study MOV (D) Published literature Amplitude of accommodation (D)
Younger group 1.18 (able to accommodate 9 + 2* Both suggesting the ability to
(20–29 years) from 4 m to 70 cm) 10 + 3.5** accommodate from 4 m to 70 cm
Middle-aged group 1.18 (able to accommodate 3.5 + 2.5* Both suggesting the ability to
(40–49 years) from 4 m to 70 cm) 5 + 2** accommodate from 4 m to 70 cm
Older group (60–69 years) 0.244 + 0.121 0.3 + 0.2*
1 + 0.5**
Table 4. Comparison of reaction time (RT) (mean + SD) between the results of the present study and those in
published literature.
results of the study not only support the use of the accommodation with time pressure. Future study will
modified autorefractor to study the dynamic further explore the accommodative performances of
accommodative characteristics of the eye under near-to-far target acquisition similar to when a driver
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various lighting conditions, but also provide a better accommodates from looking at the dashboard to
understanding of the effects of age and light intensity reading a distant target (e.g. a road sign or nearby
on the accommodative ability of the eye. Future study traffic). In this sense, realistic targets and proper levels
will include various light (optical) parameters of target intensity must first be discovered.
associated with different age groups to provide a Finally, the study was confined to an abrupt change
more reliable assessment of dynamic accommodative of the stimulus for accommodation with the exclusion
characteristics. of vergence-related accommodation. As the modified
Within the confines of the experimental design, the autorefractor has been shown to be capable of
authors believe that the findings can provide better capturing sinusoidal accommodation changes
insight into the accommodative ability associated with (Wolffsohn et al. 2001), the study of dynamic
ageing, which can be applied to areas such as virtual accommodation with a continuous stimulus would
reality and visual display terminal design. Specifically, help evaluate the effect of eye fatigue on
with the knowledge of the dynamic accommodative accommodation. Since the study assured the alignment
characteristics and the factors affecting them, the of the tested eye with the centre of the far and near
movement of the focus of the eye can be modelled targets, vergence of the eyes was minimised. In other
quantitatively to depict how the eye actually changes words, the experimental paradigm was designed to
its focus during accommodation, given the age of the assess the dynamic aspects of a blur-driven
person and the lighting conditions that are within the accommodation with an abrupt change of the stimulus.
scope of the study. In other words, it may be possible Future study of vergence accommodation can provide
to allow the virtual reality technology to project an a more comprehensive understanding of dynamic
image that is always located at the focal point of the accommodation as it takes into consideration the
eye during accommodation, resulting in clear resolu- saccades (the actual movement of the eye).
tion of the image. As older adults are found to have
less accommodative power and longer accommodation
time, the use of virtual reality and the knowledge of the
focal point of the eye would benefit the older Conclusions
population the most. Additionally, with the incorpora- In order to provide a better understanding of the age-
tion of other aspects of light (e.g. light colour related dynamic accommodation process, the present
spectrum, light duration, etc), a practical guideline study utilised a more reliable instrument to record the
describing optimal lighting conditions for visual dis- time-varying aspects of dynamic accommodation. A
play devices could be created to facilitate visual display replicable mathematical technique was also applied to
terminal design and to enhance the visual performance the data processing for objectivity. The results suggest
of the ageing population. three possible sources of age-related dynamic
In spite of these implications, however, the accommodation loss: biomechanical inflexibility of
accommodation process tested was limited to a far to accommodation-related ocular structures; increased
near accommodation paradigm, wherein each partici- central neural processing time; decreased sensitivity of
pant was asked to switch focus from a far target to a the cone photoreceptors. It is the authors’ hope that
near target as quickly as possible. This arrangement this method will enable researchers to compare results
was expected to simulate a driver reading dashboard across different studies related to dynamic
information while driving, which is also a far-to-near accommodation.
902 T.E. Lockhart and W. Shi
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