Compensatory Visual Field Training Based on a Head-Mounted Display Eye Tracker

Abstract

The impact of visual field defects on conducting Activities of Daily Living (ADL) is significant. These defects include central and peripheral visual field loss. Many studies have revealed that patients of visual field defects need to increase visual scanning on performing visual tasks. Compensation training of eye movements has been shown to be effective to improve the visual exploration and extent the visual search fields. However, since it takes sufficiently long and intense period, the training needs to incorporate easy and fun tasks to promote an ongoing effort to patients. This study proposes a compensatory visual field training using game-like dynamic scenes presented by a head-mounted display eye tracker (HMD-ET). The head mounted display will eliminate the necessity of head movements during visual exploration. Each scene induces saccadic eye movements to complete given tasks. To simulate the patient of central scotoma, the participant’s central visual field was masked while performing a training consists of obstacle course game. On the other hand, to simulate the patient with peripheral vision defects, the participant’s peripheral visual field was partly masked. During training, eye movements were recorded at 240 Hz, which enable the detection of saccadic eye movements. Experiments using the proposed training conducted by 10 participants with normal visual acuity were able to reveal the differences in patterns of visual exploration between participants with simulated central scotoma and peripheral visual field defects. Questioners taken after the training shows that tasks and scenes used for the training are relatively easy and may encourage patients to continue the training.