Critical Flicker Fusion Frequency: Effect of Age, Gender, Sleep and Display Screens

Assessing Critical Flicker Fusion Frequency: Which Confounders? A Narrative Review

“…Gender has not been found to effect mean cFFF values significantly between male and female adults [55], a result that was confirmed by our pilot study [54]. However, a moderate difference of 6% was found in one study among a group of 1000 adults, with males having slightly higher cFFF values than females [22].…”

“…However, it steadily declines as a person ages above 60 and on to the age of 80 [58]. Additionally, cFFF has been found to decrease with age [22,59], partly due to a reduction in retinal illumination [60]. Interestingly, cFFF has been shown to be a unique predictor of executive dysfunction, accounting for unique variance in performance above and beyond age and global cognitive status, across both younger and older age groups [61].…”

“…Personality: Although there are various instruments to investigate a person's properties, the cFFF test has also been used to study the relationship between personality and frequency thresholds. The test has revealed that the thresholds in adults are personalitydependent [22]. For example, cFFFs for extraverts were shown to be lower than introverts [62].…”

“…Interestingly, cFFF was found to be higher in adults who played computer or video games compared to those who did not. Furthermore, adults who played "instructive" games had a higher cFFF than those playing "quest type" games, although the types of games were not further defined beyond this categorization [22].…”

“…Additionally, cFFF is used to assess digital eye strain [20], also known as computer vision syndrome [21], which occurs due to overuse of display screens and affects both the retina and central nervous system [22].…”