Abstract

Objective tests of visual function are reliable indicators of disease and are not influenced by a patient's fears and biases. Unfortunately, there are few such tests available. We were interested in testing the feasibility of using automated pupil perimetry as an objective means of assessing the visual field. Although previous attempts at pupil perimetry did suggest it could be used to assess afferent visual function, the lack of a sensitive means to quantitate the pupil response, automatically analyze it, and produce a reproducible, automated, stimulus source has kept it from becoming a useful clinical and research tool. In order to overcome these problems we developed 1) the instrumentation to accurately quantitate changes in pupil area, 2) a software program to collect the data and analyze it with respect to various response parameters (ie change in pupil area and latency time), and 3) a link between an automated perimeter (the Humphrey Field Analyzer) and a computer-based pupillometer. By using the Humphrey Field Analyzer, we were able to compare focal pupil responses to static visual threshold testing in the same subject.

© 1990 Optical Society of America