Foveal flicker sensitivity in healthy aging eyes. I. Compensating for pupil variation.

Photopic temporal contrast sensitivity for healthy eyes of observers 65 years old and older is compared with retinal-illuminance-matched sensitivity of younger eyes. The older observers are significantly less sensitive for frequencies between 10 and 45 Hz. Although there is a slight shift to slower flicker rates in the mean contrast sensitivity function for older observers, this trend is not statistically significant, suggesting that there is relatively little loss of temporal resolving power of the visual system with healthy aging. These are preliminary results from an ongoing study of temporal contrast sensitivity in healthy aging eyes.