Peripheral Vision Adaptive Optics and Psychophysics

Abstract: This thesis is about our peripheral vision. Peripheral vision is poor compared to central vision, due to both neural and optical factors. The optical factors include astigmatism, defocus and higher order aberrations consisting mainly of coma. Neurally, the density of ganglion cells decreases towards the periphery, which limits the sampling density. The questions that this thesis attempts to answer are how much and under which circumstances correction of optical errors can improve peripheral vision. For this, an adaptive optics system has been constructed with a wavefront sensor and a deformable mirror working in closed loop to perform real-time correction of optical errors. To investigate vision, psychophysical routines utilizing Bayesian methods have been evaluated and modified for peripheral vision to handle the presence of aliasing, fixation instability and rapid fatigue.We found that correcting both refractive errors and higher order aberrations improved peripheral low-contrast resolution acuity. \\We looked at two specific topics in peripheral vision research in particular: Central visual field loss and myopia development. Persons with central visual field loss have to rely on their remaining peripheral vision, and it is of great interest to understand whether optical correction can offer them any benefits. In a case study on a single subject, we found meaningful improvements in vision with both optimized refractive correction as well as additional benefits with aberration correction. These improvements were larger than for comparable healthy subjects with a similar magnitude of aberrations. When it comes to myopia development, an interesting hypothesis is that peripheral optics affect and guide the emmetropization process. We have found an asymmetric depth of field in the periphery for myopic subjects, caused by their higher order aberrations, and presented a model on how this asymmetry may influence the emmetropization process.