The impact on human visual performance when viewing 2-D and 3-D movies

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: To examine the human visual performance (wavefront aberration) and subjective questionnaire (SQ) of visual fatigue when viewing 2-D and 3-D movies. METHODS: Thirty healthy adults observed 2-D and 3-D movies on the same television from a 3m distances during 2D, 3D-A (with better 3D glasses), and 3D-B (with poorer 3D glasses) viewing conditions. Visual quality index, including modulation transfer function index (MTFI), higher order aberration root mean square (RMS), vertical coma (VC), horizontal coma (HC) and spherical aberration (SA), were assessed before and after each viewing condition. One-way repeated measures ANOVA was performed to assess the changes of each test variable before and after movie viewing. RESULTS: Participants watching movies with 3D-B conditions experienced higher change of MTFI, RMS, VC and HC but smaller SQ, compared with 2D and 3D-A (P < 0.05). Additionally, higher MTFI but smaller SQ was found for 3D-A compared with 2D viewing condition (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: While prolonged viewing 2-D and 3-D movies would lead to poorer visual performance, 3-D glasses with better quality can play the major role in reducing visual ability for users. The change of human eye wavefront aberration might be useful for the evaluation of visual fatigue in the future.