Visual function: The problem with eccentricity

Abstract

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in developed countries. With an ageing population, the prevalence of such a condition has resulted in a large proportion of the population relying on peripheral vision to undertake activities of daily living. Peripheral vision is not a scaled-down version of the fovea, simply requiring larger print or increased contrast for detection of objects or reading text. Even when print size is scaled and eye movements are minimised, the peripheral retina cannot perform at the level of the foveal region. Understanding how and why reading performance is limited as a function of eccentricity has important implications for how we ap..