Purpose.: Contrast adaptation may induce an error signal for emmetropization. This research aims to determine whether reading causes contrast adaptation in children and, if so, to determine whether myopes exhibit greater contrast adaptation than emmetropes.

Methods.: Baseline contrast sensitivity was determined in 34 emmetropic and 34 spectacle-corrected myopic children for 0.5, 1.2, 2.7, 4.4, and 6.2 cycles per degree (cpd) horizontal sine-wave gratings. Effects of near tasks on contrast sensitivity were determined during periods spent looking at a 6.2 cpd horizontal grating and during periods spent reading lines of English text, with 1.2 cpd row frequency and 6 cpd stroke frequency.

Results.: Both emmetropic and myopic groups (mean±SD; age, 10.3±1.4 years) showed reduced contrast sensitivity during both near tasks, with greatest overall adaptation at 6.2 cpd. Adaptation induced by viewing the grating (0.15±0.17 log unit [40%]; range, 0.07–0.27 log unit) was significantly greater than adaptation induced by reading text (0.11±0.18 log unit [29%], 0.08–0.16 log unit)(F 1,594= 10.7; P= 0.001). Myopic children showed significantly greater adaptation across the tasks (0.15±0.18 log unit [42%]) than emmetropic children (0.10±0.16 log unit [26%])(F 1, 66= 7.30; P= 0.009), with the greatest difference occurring at 4.4 cpd (mean, 0.11 log unit [30%]).

Conclusions.: Grating and reading tasks induced contrast adaptation; viewing horizontal gratings induced greater adaptation than reading, and myopes exhibited greater adaptation than emmetropes. Contrast adaptation effects may underlie findings of prolonged near work being associated with myopia. However, our research does not show whether this is consequential or causal.