Effects of induced transverse chromatic aberration from an afocal prismatic lens on spatio–temporal sensitivity

Abstract

The goal of this study was to evaluate the effect of ophthalmic lens-induced transverse chromatic aberrations (TCA) in natural viewing conditions on spatio–temporal thresholds. Three psychophysical experiments were performed; the first isolating the spatial component, the second isolating the temporal component and the third assessing spatio–temporal combinations. Taken together, the results show that TCA has profound effects on medium to high spatial frequencies (above 1 cpd) consistent with previous studies, and that the ratio of deficit TCA/blur can be higher than 2:1 for equivalent dioptric strengths. Furthermore, the results of Experiment 1 and 3 taken together show that the relative sensitivity loss caused by TCA can differ significantly between individuals and that a possible factor for this differential loss is the overall baseline spatio–temporal sensitivity profile of the individual.