The effect of mental load on psychophysical and visual evoked potential visual acuity

Purpose Under real-world conditions, tasks dependent on visual acuity may need to be performed in the presence of a mental load arising from concurrent, non-visual tasks. Therefore, measuring visual acuity concurrently with mentally demanding tasks may reflect a patient's vision more accurately. This study was designed to evaluate the impact of task-induced mental load on high contrast visual acuity, as measured using a letter chart and estimated via sweep visual evoked potentials (sweep VEP). Methods Visual acuity was determined using the Freiburg Vision Test, and also using sweep VEP tested stepwise, from coarse to fine, over 13 spatial frequencies, in 31 healthy participants (aged 22.4 +/- 3.6 years). Recordings were repeated while participants concurrently performed an auditory 2-back task. Mental load of the n-back task was confirmed through subjective ratings. Results Visual acuity determined with the Freiburg Vision Test worsened from -0.02 +/- 0.12 to 0.04 +/- 0.15 logMAR under mental load (p = 0.03). Visual acuities estimated by sweep VEPs worsened from 0.38 +/- 0.1 to 0.47 +/- 0.1 logMAR (p < 0.001). While the slope of the VEP amplitude versus spatial frequency function steepened significantly with mental load (p = 0.01), VEP noise levels were not significantly affected (p = 0.07). Conclusion Visual acuity reduces significantly with a concurrent task that produces mental load. At least part of this reduction appears to be related to alterations in responses within the visual cortex, rather than being purely attributable to higher-level distraction effects.