Ming Xiaolu, Huang Gantian, Liao Meng, Jiang Ping, Liu Longqian
Department of Ophthalmology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Laboratory of Optometry and Vision Sciences, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Front Neurosci. 2025 May 21;19:1548243. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1548243. eCollection 2025.
This study aims to investigate face perception ability in adult patients with amblyopia.
We conducted two psychophysical experiments. The Face-detection task involved 25 amblyopic patients and 25 healthy controls, using face stimulation at 6 stimulation intensities. The Toast task included 16 amblyopic patients and 15 healthy controls, with pure noise images and semantic cues designed to induce face perception. We recorded accuracy and reaction times (RT) and used the Kruskal-Wallis test with Wilcoxon comparisons to analyze group differences.
In the Face-detection task, amblyopic eyes (AE) exhibited significantly higher face detection thresholds than healthy controls ( < 0.05), indicating face detection deficit. AE showed lower accuracy at 20 and 67% stimulation intensities compared with HC and fellow eyes ( < 0.01). The Toast task revealed no significant differences in false alarm rate or RT were observed between groups ( > 0.1).
This study shows that patients with amblyopia have impaired face perception, with higher threshold and lower accuracy, especially under lower stimulation conditions. These findings highlight the need for further research to understand the neural basis of these deficits and explore potential treatments. Ultimately, these study results may provide valuable insights and fill an important gap in the psychophysical understanding of amblyopia.
本研究旨在调查成年弱视患者的面部感知能力。
我们进行了两项心理物理学实验。面部检测任务涉及25名弱视患者和25名健康对照，使用6种刺激强度的面部刺激。吐司任务包括16名弱视患者和15名健康对照，采用纯噪声图像和旨在诱发面部感知的语义线索。我们记录了准确率和反应时间（RT），并使用Kruskal-Wallis检验和Wilcoxon比较来分析组间差异。
在面部检测任务中，弱视眼（AE）的面部检测阈值显著高于健康对照（<0.05），表明存在面部检测缺陷。与健康对照和对侧眼相比，弱视眼在20%和67%刺激强度下的准确率较低（<0.01）。吐司任务显示，各组之间在虚报率或反应时间方面没有观察到显著差异（>0.1）。
本研究表明，弱视患者存在面部感知受损，阈值较高且准确率较低，尤其是在较低刺激条件下。这些发现凸显了进一步研究以了解这些缺陷的神经基础并探索潜在治疗方法的必要性。最终，这些研究结果可能提供有价值的见解，并填补弱视心理物理学理解方面的一个重要空白。
