Abstract
Purpose: In recent years (VSS 13,14,15), our lab has examined the interactions among different sensory modalities, namely whether there is a relationship between an individual’s thresholds across various measures of spatial and temporal vision, hearing, and pain sensitivity. Our results show that in some cases (e.g. spatial contrast sensitivity vs. pain tolerance; contrast sensitivity vs. audibility) individual differences in performance appear to be retained across the senses. In the present work, we extend this work to examine a comparison between the two traditional clinical measures of human vision and hearing, optotype visual acuity and pure-tone audiometry. Methods: Right eyes from 92 young adults, were tested monocularly at 3m with a LogMARletter optotype acuity chart(Precision Vision). The same adults also completed a full (250 to 8000 Hz) audiometry exam (GSI 17) understandard staircase test conditions. Only data from the right ear was used for analysis. Order of the hearing and vision tests was counterbalanced across adults. Results: Regression analysis was conducted between visual acuity and auditory thresholds a teach frequency and for the average threshold across all frequencies. Results showed that for most comparisons there was no relationship between anindividual’svisual acuity and his/her auditory threshold. However at 4000 Hz, there was apositive relationship(r = 0.24, p = 0.02), indicating that those with better LogMAR visual acuity also hadsu-perior auditory thresholds, at least at that frequency. Conclusions: What is interesting about this finding is that for most adults, 4000 Hzrepresents the frequency at which we show maximum auditory sensitivity. Likewisevisual acuity is a measure thatassesses spatial vision at its maximal capacity (i.e. vision under high contrast and at its highest spatial frequency). This result suggests that individual adults may show consistency cross-modally at the absolute limits of their respective sensory functioning.
Acknowledgement: NSERC (Canada) Janeway Hospital Foundation