Abstract
This study aimed to explore whether there was an effect on steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) visual acuity assessment from the oblique effect or the stimulus orientation. SSVEPs were induced by seven visual stimuli, e.g., the reversal sinusoidal gratings with horizontal, two oblique, and vertical orientations, reversal checkerboards with vertical and oblique orientations, and oscillating expansion-contraction concentric-rings, at six spatial frequency steps. Ten subjects participated in the experiment. Subsequently, a threshold estimation criterion was used to determine the objective SSVEP visual acuity corresponding to each visual stimulus. Taking the SSVEP amplitude and signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) of the fundamental reversal frequency as signal characteristics, both the SSVEP amplitude and SNR induced by the reversal sinusoidal gratings at 3.0 cpd among four stimulus orientations had no significant difference, and the same finding was also shown in the checkerboards between vertical and oblique orientation. In addition, the SSVEP visual acuity obtained by the threshold estimation criterion for all seven visual stimuli showed no significant difference. This study demonstrated that the SSVEPs induced by all these seven visual stimuli had a similarly good performance in evaluating visual acuity, and the oblique effect or the stimulus orientation had little effect on SSVEP response as well as the SSVEP visual acuity.
Highlights
Visual acuity, a measure of the spatial resolution of the visual processing system, is one of the most essential parameters for testing visual ability, mainly carried out with subjective tests such as letter charts (e.g., Sloan letters or Snellen letters) (Bailey and Lovie, 1976; Ricci et al, 2009), and partially automated methods, such as the Freiburg Visual Acuity and Contrast Test (FrACT) (Bach, 1996, 2007)
The subsequent Bonferroni posthoc analysis of state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) amplitude of the reversal sinusoidal gratings of four orientations at the spatial frequency of 3.0 and 30.0 cpd was shown in Supplementary Tables 1, 2, showing that there was no significant difference in SSVEP amplitude among each orientation at 3.0 cpd when the visual stimuli was clear enough to the subjects (P > 0.05, respectively), indicating that the stimulus orientation or oblique effect had no significant effect on the amplitude of SSVEPs induced by the reversal sinusoidal gratings
Taking the SSVEP amplitude and SNR of the fundamental frequency as signal characteristics, this study found that both the SSVEP amplitude and SNR induced by the reversal sinusoidal gratings at 3.0 cpd of four stimulus orientations had no difference
Summary
A measure of the spatial resolution of the visual processing system, is one of the most essential parameters for testing visual ability, mainly carried out with subjective tests such as letter charts (e.g., Sloan letters or Snellen letters) (Bailey and Lovie, 1976; Ricci et al, 2009), and partially automated methods, such as the Freiburg Visual Acuity and Contrast Test (FrACT) (Bach, 1996, 2007). The stimulus orientation of gratings is usually vertical or horizontal (Zheng et al, 2020c)
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