Abstract

Contrast sensitivity testing has been reported to be useful in the detection and monitoring of certain ocular conditions. Also, for individuals with normal visual acuity, Ginsburg et al. (1983) stated that contrast sensitivity, rather than visual acuity, was strongly related to pilots’ aircraft detection performance. However, their results show that over the 10 test days there was a lack of consistency for the contrast sensitivity any particular spatial frequency to correlate with detection distance, even between days with similar visibility conditions. In a simulator study, Ginsburg et al. (1982) reported that pilots’ scotopic contrast sensitivity correlated with detection of an aircraft on a runway. In this study, however, three visibility conditions (day, night, and fog) were used but the only correlation reported was between the peak of the scotopic contrast sensitivity and detection of a Mig at the end of a runway under low visibility, presumably fog. Both studies measured contrast sensitivity using the method of increasing contrast, which is known to be influenced by individual threshold criterion (Higgins et al., 1984), and may have lead to criterion-influenced correlations.

© 1988 Optical Society of America