Optometry Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Optometry, including details on myopia, optometric practice, therapy.

Visual search training in subjects with severe to profound low vision.

Liu L, Kuyk T, Fuhr P

School of Optometry, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1716 University Blvd., Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.

Effects of practicing on feature search tasks (a 2 degrees square target amid 1 degrees square distracters) for 5 days were compared between 45 visually impaired (VI) subjects with severe to profound low vision and 23 age-matched normal controls (NV). Search accuracy and speed improved in both groups. VI subjects had larger training gains than NV subjects, but their proportional gains were similar to that of NV subjects. There were no significant differences in training effect at different set sizes in both groups. Search performance on a 40 degrees field improved more than that on a 10 degrees or 20 degrees field in VI subjects, but not in NV subjects. No significant change was found between day 5 and 1-month follow-up. The fact that feature search training is equally efficient in VI and NV subjects encourages development of general purpose perceptual training protocols for low vision rehabilitation.

Published 17 September 2007 in Vision Res, 47(20): 2627-36.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2005-2008 Optometry Research Today. All Rights Reserved.