Visibility Vol 9 Issue 1 & 2, 2015

With the loss of central vision associated with Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), clients with AMD report difficulty in performing daily tasks such as reading, shopping, recognizing faces and detecting the emotion of an individual through their face. The latter is of importance, as failure to recognize emotion can lead to social awkwardness, causing an individual to withdraw from social activities that can be important for cognitive wellbeing. Previously, we have reported that in comparison to healthy age-matched healthy controls, individuals with AMD have difficulty in perceiving and classifying emotions in a face. The goal of the current research was to develop a systematic characterization of the limits of peripheral vision in a face emotion detection task in patients with AMD, in comparison to an aged-matched control group.