Abstract
Purpose :
The assessment of visual field sensitivities in young children continues to be a challenge. Children often do not sit still, fail to fixate stimuli for longer durations, and have limited verbal capacity to report visibility. We investigated the use of a head-mounted VR display, gaze-contingent flicker pupil perimetry (gcFPP), and three fixation stimulus conditions to determine best practices for optimal fixation and pupil response quality.
Methods :
A total of twenty healthy children aged 3-11 years old (mean age and SD 7.2 ± 2.4, 14 male) passively fixated a dot, counted the repeated appearance of an animated character, and watched an animated movie in separate trials of 80s each. We presented large flickering patches at different eccentricities and angles in the periphery to evoke pupillary oscillations (20 locations, 4s per location).
Results :
The results showed that gaze precision and accuracy did not differ significantly across the fixation conditions but pupil amplitudes were strongest for the fixation dot (p < .01) and count task (p < .05) when compared to the animated movie condition. A query revealed that 18 out of 20 children favored the counting task condition.
Conclusions :
We recommend the use of the counting task as fixation condition for pupil perimetry because children enjoyed it the most and it achieved strongest pupil responses. The VR set-up appears to be an ideal apparatus for children to allow free range of movement, an engaging visual task, and reliable eye measurements.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.