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Assessment of time‐dependent inter‐relationships between spontaneous eyeblink frequency, average and dominant interblink intervals in man
Author(s) -
Zaman Mohammed L.,
Doughty Michael J.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
ophthalmic and physiological optics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.147
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1475-1313
pISSN - 0275-5408
DOI - 10.1046/j.1475-1313.1997.97807557.x
Subject(s) - audiology , eyeblink conditioning , psychology , medicine , statistics , mathematics , classical conditioning , conditioning
Measures of spontaneous eyeblink activity, despite often being measured, have not been standardized and the reliability of the measures has received very little attention. Video recordings were made of 22 healthy volunteers aged 20 to 58 years, while silently fixating on a 2 m distant, 35 mm high target under 350 lux illumination. Using an event marker, significant fluctuations (up to ±35%) in spontaneous eyeblink frequency (SEBF) or inter‐blink intervals (IBI) were observed in most subjects, on a minute‐by‐minute basis, over a 5‐minute period. However, the eyeblink activity did not conform to a minute‐by‐minute periodicity and time‐dependent trends were uncommon. For subjects <40 years of age, correlation's between SEBF and IBI indicated that 3‐5 minute assessments were likely to be adequate, but that at least 5 min periods are generally required for older patients. Modal IBI values correlated well with an adjusted modal calculated SEBF and represent a more accurate estimate of the dominant eyelid activity. Methods have thus been standardized to allow meaningful measures of spontaneous eyeblink activity to be made in health and disease.