Critical Flicker Fusion FrequencyIntroduction to the CINP Session in Göteborg and Methodological Recommendations

Abstract

The flicker fusion phenomenon has been explained as far back as 1834-35 by the Englishman Talbot and the Belgian Plateau but it has first started to raise the interest of clinicians one century later, e.g. for the early diagnosis of a brain tumor (Phillips 1933), because of its relationship to aging (Ferree et al. 1933) or to "CNS fatigue" (Simonson and Enzer 1941). CFF literature is scattered throughout journals related to numerous disciplines, from ophthalmology and psychopharmacology to industrial hygiene and aerospatial medicine. The method suffers a lack of standardization of apparatus, test procedures and analysis of the results. This is the reason why a special session of the 12th congress of the Collegium Internationale Neuropsychopharmacologicum was devoted to CFF.