Visual acuity and contrast sensitivity for individual Sloan letters

Sloan letter optotypes are used frequently to evaluate visual impairment, and scoring procedures have been developed that are based on the numbers of letters that are identified correctly. However, previous studies have presented conflicting evidence regarding the relative identifiability of the individual Sloan letters. To investigate this issue further, we measured psychometric functions for the identification of each of the 10 Sloan letters, with individual letters presented in random order on the gray-scale display of a Macintosh computer-based testing system. Data were obtained from three visually normal subjects under each of three conditions: (1) as a function of log contrast at a relatively large letter size; (2) as a function of log contrast at a letter size near the acuity limit; and (3) as a function of log MAR (minimum angle of resolution) at maximum letter contrast. Estimates of threshold log contrast and threshold log MAR were derived from best-fitting Weibull functions. Threshold log contrast for small letters showed the greatest interletter variability. There was relatively little interletter variability in either threshold log contrast for large letters or threshold log MAR for high-contrast letters. However, due to the relatively steep psychometric functions under these latter two conditions, the different Sloan letters had considerably different percent correct values near threshold. The overall pattern of results suggests that the contrast sensitivity functions for individual Sloan letters are displaced laterally along a log MAR axis, while their vertical positions are essentially equivalent.