Visual performance after correcting the monochromatic and chromatic aberrations of the eye

TLDR

Advances in measuring and correcting higher‑order aberrations raise questions about the visual benefit of such corrections. Adaptive optics correction of higher‑order monochromatic aberrations improves contrast sensitivity and visual acuity in both white and monochromatic light, with greater gains when chromatic aberrations are also avoided, matching theoretical predictions.

Abstract

The development of technology to measure and correct the eye's higher-order aberrations, i.e., those beyond defocus and astigmatism, raises the issue of how much visual benefit can be obtained by providing such correction. We demonstrate improvements in contrast sensitivity and visual acuity in white light and in monochromatic light when adaptive optics corrects the eye's higher-order monochromatic aberrations. In white light, the contrast sensitivity and visual acuity when most monochromatic aberrations are corrected with a deformable mirror are somewhat higher than when defocus and astigmatism alone are corrected. Moreover, viewing conditions in which monochromatic aberrations are corrected and chromatic aberrations are avoided provides an even larger improvement in contrast sensitivity and visual acuity. These results are in reasonable agreement with the theoretical improvement calculated from the eye's optical modulation transfer function.