Chapter 9 Psychophysical techniques

TL;DR: Fundamental concepts of psychophysical testing are discussed, including potential pitfalls and drawbacks, and some of the commonly used clinical applications of psychophysics methods are described, including the measurement of visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and visual fields.

Abstract: Publisher Summary A powerful non-invasive tool for evaluating the information processing capabilities of people afflicted with visual disorders is visual psychophysics. The term psychophysics has two meanings. First, it refers to a set of methods that have been developed to quantify the relationship between the physical environment and internal sensory states. Second, psychophysics is often used to refer to the body of knowledge that has been gathered by these methods. Information that is gathered from psychophysical methods in the clinical setting serves a number of important purposes. Knowledge of a person's visual capabilities as derived from psychophysical methods can be used to provide an early diagnosis of ocular disease, to monitor disease progression, to provide insights into the pathophysiology of the disease and to establish the efficacy of potential treatments. This chapter discusses fundamental concepts of psychophysical testing, including potential pitfalls and drawbacks, and then describes some of the commonly used clinical applications of psychophysical methods, including the measurement of visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and visual fields.