The speed of sight: Individual variation in critical flicker fusion thresholds.

Autor: Haarlem CS; Department of Zoology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.; Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland., O'Connell RG; Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland., Mitchell KJ; Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.; Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland., Jackson AL; Department of Zoology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2024 Apr 01; Vol. 19 (4), pp. e0298007. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Apr 01 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298007
Abstrakt: The critical flicker fusion threshold is a psychophysical measure commonly used to quantify visual temporal resolution; the fastest rate at which a visual system can discriminate visual signals. Critical flicker fusion thresholds vary substantially among species, reflecting different ecological niches and demands. However, it is unclear how much variation exists in flicker fusion thresholds between healthy individuals of the same species, or how stable this attribute is over time within individuals. In this study, we assessed both inter- and intra-individual variation in critical flicker fusion thresholds in a cohort of healthy human participants within a specific age range, using two common psychophysical methods and three different measurements during each session. The resulting thresholds for each method were highly correlated. We found a between-participant maximum difference of roughly 30 Hz in flicker fusion thresholds and we estimated a 95% prediction interval of 21 Hz. We used random-effects models to compare between- and within-participant variance and found that approximately 80% of variance was due to between-individual differences, and about 10% of the variance originated from within-individual differences over three sessions. Within-individual thresholds did not differ significantly between the three sessions in males, but did in females (P<0.001 for two methods and P<0.05 for one method), indicating that critical flicker fusion thresholds may be more variable in females than in males.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Haarlem et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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