Contrast sensitivity of deaf and hearing children for sine-wave gratings in mesopic conditions / Sensibilidade ao contraste de crianças surdas e ouvintes para grades senoidais em condições mesópicas

• Main Authors: Natanael Antonio dos Santos, Liana Chaves Mendes, Príscilla Anny de Araújo Alves
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2009-01-01
• Series: Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica
• Subjects: Visual perception; Contrast sensitivity; Spatial frequency; Deaf children; Psychophysical method
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0102-79722009000200009&lng=pt&nrm=iso&tlng=pt

The aim of this study was to compare the contrast sensitivity (CSF) of deaf children and hearing children to spatial frequency of 0.25 to 2.0 cpd (cycles per degree of visual angle) at mesopic luminance level (0.7 cd/m2), using the psychophysical forced-choice method. Twenty children (7-12 years old) participated in this research, ten with prelingual deafness and ten with normal hearing. All participants had normal or corrected visual acuity. The ANOVA showed significant difference between the two groups [F(1, 238) = 15.487; p < 0.001], but the post-hoc Tukey HSD test analysis did not reveal significant difference in frequency to frequency comparison between the two groups (p > 0.05). The results suggest alterations in CSF to sine-wave gratings stimuli of deaf children at mesopic luminance level.