Dynamic accommodation responses to stationary colored targets.

PURPOSE When the targets or the background in a display are different colors, longitudinal chromatic aberration ensures that there is no single correct accommodative response. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the response becomes more variable when viewing certain multicolor displays. METHODS Accommodative responses of five young participants were measured with a dynamic infrared optometer while they viewed steady targets at a nominal stimulus level of 3 D. Target-on-background color combinations were black on white, black on blue, black on red, blue on red, red on blue, dark blue on red, and dark red on blue. RESULTS When compared with the standard black-on-white target, responses to targets with reduced spectral bandwidth were not significantly more variable. In most participants, responses to near-isoluminant targets (e.g., red on blue and blue on red) were not more variable than to the standard target. However, calculated confidence intervals cannot rule out moderate to large changes in variability near isoluminance. Responses to these multicolor targets tended to favor the blue focus. CONCLUSIONS In most individuals, viewing multichromatic targets does not increase significantly the variation in accommodative response as compared with broadband black-and-white targets.