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Viewing distance: a trade-off of reserves . Jim Sheedy. When viewing smaller text, what factors determine the habitual viewing distance?. Hypothesis A balance is determined between 2 countervailing factors The desire to increase the angular size drives towards a closer viewing distance
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Viewing distance: a trade-off of reserves Jim Sheedy
When viewing smaller text, what factors determine the habitual viewing distance? • Hypothesis • A balance is determined between 2 countervailing factors • The desire to increase the angular size drives towards a closer viewing distance • Acuity reserve • Resistance to near viewing is caused by accommodation (and convergence). • Accommodative reserve
Acuity Reserve • the ratio of a given print size to the visual acuity threshold for identifying letters or characters. • essentially quantifies the amount by which given text exceeds threshold
Optimal acuity reserve • The minimum acuity reserve that optimizes performance • 2:1 ratio determined by Whittaker and Lovie-Kitchin for low vision patients • 4:1 and 5:1 ratios determined for young adults with normal vision (Bowers et al, Yager et al)
Optimal Acuity Reserve Significance levels for adjacent visual angles. Shaded areas reflect the angular size at which reaction time significantly increases. * * * * * * * * * * The larger size of each shaded box is treated as beginning of flat curve
Acuity reserve calculation • The sizes at which the curves become flat generally range from 20/40 to 20/62. • Comparing these values to the threshold acuity levels for each condition and averaging across all conditions gives a mean acuity reserve ratio of 2.93:1 (range of 3.93:1 - 2.20:1). • Rounded value: 3:1
Comparison to typical text We flirt with 3:1
Maintaining the 3:1 reserve would require considerably more accommodation Accommodative demand of the measured viewing distances for hard copy text, and the accommodative demand that would be caused if viewing distance were adjusted to provide a 3:1 acuity reserve.
Accommodative lag increases with shorter viewing distances 0.57 D 0.72 D 0.79 D 1.05 D …an indication of accommodative resistance? …effect of pupil constriction? Data from the Grand Seiko calibration study
Age and accommodation Age-related amplitude of accommodation as determined by Donders (1864) and Duane (1912)
Reading small text • Reduced viewing distance inadequately compensates text angular size • The need for acuity reserve drives reduced viewing distance • Accommodative stress likely plays a role in mitigating the reduced viewing distance • Other factors • Criticality of task • Convergence • Task interaction • Compromises result
Acknowledgment • These studies are supported by Microsoft Corporation