Accommodative responses to naturalistic stimuli

Steady‐state accommodative responses to a wide range of commonly encountered textural and graphic stimuli were investigated in 12 young, visually normal subjects. Details of two experiments are described. In the first experiment, stimuli were varied in terms of size, contrast, spatial frequency, colour and intellectual demand. In the second experiment, only the colour of the targets was systematically altered. In both experiments the stimulus demand was maintained at 3 D, and accommodation was measured subjectively using a Hartinger coincidence optometer. No significant difference in mean accommodative response was observed between the widely differing targets adopted in either experiment. These findings suggest that an overall threshold exists for accommodative stimuli, with supra‐threshold targets of low to moderate contrast being capable of initiating and sustaining an appropriate accommodative response.