Calibrated measurement of acuity, color and stereopsis on a Nintendo^® 3DS™ game console

Abstract

Significance: A Nintendo^® 3DS™ game can reliably test monocular near acuity, stereopsis and color without the need for occlusion patches or goggles.

Purpose: We developed dynamic, forced-multiple choice games to measure monocular near acuity, color vision and stereopsis on the autostereoscopic barrier screen of the Nintendo 3DS gaming system.

Methods: In an institutional review board-approved study, pediatric and adult patients and normal subjects performed routine patched near visual acuity, Ishahara’s color test and Stereo Fly tests. Then each subject performed a two-phase orientation and testing game, “PDI Check”, on a Nintendo 3DS.

Results: Forty-five patients aged 5–60 years completed the routine and Nintendo near tests, resulting in positive, consistent, discriminatory correlation functions. From ROC curves, referral criteria were determined to separate poor from fair-to-normal monocular acuity with 98% sensitivity and 100% specificity, stereoacuity with 80% sensitivity and 97% specificity, and color with 83% sensitivity and 100% specificity.

Conclusion: The Nintendo 3DS game PDI Check can provide consistent near vision testing via a dynamic, randomized method that does not require goggles for stereo, and does not require patching to assure monocular testing.

Video abstract

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Keywords:

• near sensory testing
• video game
• autostereoscopic barrier screen
• monocular visual acuity
• stereopsis
• dynamic color test

Acknowledgment

The paper was presented as a poster at the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (AAPOS) Meeting, Washington, DC, USA, March 18, 2018.

Disclosure

The authors are board members of PDI Check, LLC, which markets the patent-pending game “PDI Check” for the Nintendo 3DS. Kyle A Smith reports no other conflicts outside PDI Check, LLC, outside the submitted work. Alex G Damarjian has nothing to disclose. Aaron Molina has nothing to disclose. Robert W Arnold reports that, in addition to PDI Check, being a board member of Glacier Medical Software, coordinating the Alaska Blind Child Discovery and being a protocol developer and investigator for the Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group (PEDIG). In addition, There is a PDI Check patent pending for Robert W Arnold and Alex G Damarjian. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.

Supplementary material

Video S1 Demonstration of the use of the PDI Check game for the Nintendo^® 3DS™.