Binocular visual performance with aberration correction as a function of light level.

ABSTRACT

The extent to which monocular visual performance of subjects with normal amounts of ocular aberrations can be improved with adaptive optics (AO) depends on both the pupil diameter and the luminance for visual testing. Here, the benefit of correction of higher order aberrations for binocular visual performance was assessed over a range of luminances for natural light-adapted pupil sizes with a binocular AO visual simulator. Results show that binocular aberration correction benefits for visual acuity and contrast sensitivity increase with decreasing luminances. Also, the advantage of binocular over monocular viewing increases when visual acuity becomes worse. The findings suggest that binocular summation mitigates poor visual performance under low luminance conditions.