Useful field of view

In human vision, the useful field of view (or UFOV) is the visual area from which one can briefly extract information without eye or head movements. UFOV size generally decreases with age, most likely due to decreases in visual processing speed, reduced attentional resources, and reduced ability to ignore distracting information. UFOV performance is correlated with a number of important real-world issues including risk of an automobile crash. Performance can be improved by computer-based training.
History.
UFOV assessment and training programs were primarily developed by Karlene Ball of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Daniel Roenker of Western Kentucky University. The first versions of the assessment and training programs were produced more than 20 years ago at Northwestern University by Robert Sekuler and Karlene Ball. These programs were originally made available through Visual Awareness Inc.
UFOV assessment.
The traditional UFOV assessment is a computer-based visual test containing three subtests. 
1. Processing Speed: Determines a person's threshold for discriminating stimuli presented in central vision.
2. Divided Attention: Same as Subtest 1 but with the addition of a concurrent peripheral target location task.
3. Selective Attention: Same as Subtest 2 but with the addition of distracters.
The threshold scores are combined to produce an overall performance score.
Impact of UFOV.
Performance on the UFOV assessment is correlated with several real-world functions:
UFOV training.
UFOV performance can be improved by computer-based training. Multiple studies have shown that improved UFOV performance generalizes to several real-world functions. UFOV training has been shown to:
Note: UFOV is not the same as a visual field or perimetry test that examines the ability of the visual system to processes light falling on various regions of the retina. Perimetry tests check for the integrity of the visual system while UFOV tests a person's ability to pay attention to the information in the visual field particularly when under situations of increased attentional demand.