Working towards a test for screening visual skills in a complex visual environment

Abstract

We developed a test for screening visual skills under similar conditions as at workplace. The test was administered to 207 participants, recruited in the working population. Six-digit numbers were super-imposed on a video of a drive and presented for 300 ms in the central visual field and in the periphery. Participants reported whether or not the integer ‘3’ was included in the numbers. Normative data for the test were computed using 150 data sets of participants reporting not to take drugs and with an age ranging between 15 y and 67 y. Participants performed better in the central visual field than in periphery. The test could successfully be completed by participants of all ages without the need of adjustment of settings. Comparison of 46 data sets recorded in participants taking drugs (30 y – 68 y) with age matched participants not taking drugs demonstrates an additional potential application of the test.

Practitioner Summary: Developed test delivers comparative estimates of visual skills within short time and appears as valuable and cheap complementation to current testing procedures in industrial practice. The test can be used in a preventive and in educative manner to monitor effects of factors like fatigue, sleep deprivation or drug consumption.

Keywords:

• visual skills
• screening
• detectability
• complex visual environment

Acknowledgements

The authors are very much in debt to Dr Marc Arial and the anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on a previous version of the manuscript. Also the authors wish to thank Prof. Dr. Dr. Helmut Krueger for helpful advice on the test set-up as well as Rudy Huang for her advice on statistical analysis.