Street-crossing decision-making: a comparison between patients with age-related macular degeneration and normal vision.
OBJECTIVE
We determined whether the street-crossing decisions of subjects with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) were as accurate and precise as those made by young and older subjects with normal vision.


METHODS
Street-crossing decisions in 13 AMD subjects, and 20 young and 20 older control subjects with normal vision were measured along an un-signalized street for nine different gap times. After calculating the discriminability (d') of the street-crossing decision variable for all gap pairs and entering these d' values into a one-dimensional scaling model, the means of each distribution of the decision variable relative to a "center of gravity" were estimated and plotted against gap time. The resultant plot was a nonlinear function. Street-crossing decision accuracy was computed for each subject as the difference between the x-intercept of the nonlinear function (t(COG)) and subjects' measured street-crossing time. Street-crossing decision-making precision was computed as the value of the slope of the nonlinear function at t(COG).


RESULTS
We found that all subjects were precise in their street-crossing decisions (P = 0.55). Significant differences in street-crossing accuracy were found as a function of age (P = 0.003). Compared to either the older normally-sighted (P = 0.018) or AMD (P = 0.019) subjects, the young normally-sighted subjects made the least accurate street-crossing decisions. No significant difference in accuracy was found between the AMD and age-matched normally-sighted subjects (P = 0.90).


CONCLUSIONS
Our data suggested that age and mild central vision loss did not affect significantly a subject's precision in their street-crossing decisions. Age, but not mild central vision loss, significantly affected a subject's accuracy in their street-crossing decisions.
School of Optometry, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA. shhassan@indiana.edu
Shirin E
SE
Hassan
Benjamin D
BD
Snyder
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001336:Automobiles; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008268:Macular Degeneration / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012449:Safety; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult