Abstract
The visual pathway is retinotopically organized and sensitive to gaze position, leading us to hypothesize that subjects using visual prostheses incorporating eye position would perform better on perceptual tasks than with devices that are merely head-steered. We had sighted subjects read sentences from the MNREAD corpus through a simulation of artificial vision under conditions of full gaze compensation, and head-steered viewing. With 2000 simulated phosphenes, subjects (n = 23) were immediately able to read under full gaze compensation and were assessed at an equivalent visual acuity of 1.0 logMAR, but were nearly unable to perform the task under head-steered viewing. At the largest font size tested, 1.4 logMAR, subjects read at 59 WPM (50% of normal speed) with 100% accuracy under the full-gaze condition, but at 0.7 WPM (under 1% of normal) with below 15% accuracy under head-steering. We conclude that gaze-compensated prostheses are likely to produce considerably better patient outcomes than those not incorporating eye movements.
Highlights
The visual pathway is retinotopically organized and sensitive to gaze position, leading us to hypothesize that subjects using visual prostheses incorporating eye position would perform better on perceptual tasks than with devices that are merely head-steered
To-date, most visual prostheses provide a modest level of visual function through electrical stimulation applied to a collection of electrode contacts at one of the stages of the early visual pathway
Subjects were presented a series of simple, three-line sentences to read on a computer monitor that simulated artificial vision from a device with 2000 phosphenes under the Full Gaze and Head Only conditions
Summary
The visual pathway is retinotopically organized and sensitive to gaze position, leading us to hypothesize that subjects using visual prostheses incorporating eye position would perform better on perceptual tasks than with devices that are merely head-steered. To-date, most visual prostheses provide a modest level of visual function through electrical stimulation applied to a collection of electrode contacts at one of the stages of the early visual pathway (e.g., retina, optic nerve, lateral geniculate nucleus or primary visual cortex). Each of these contacts is used to stimulate a small volume of neural tissue and evoke a focal visual percept called a phosphene, colloquially known as the pixels of artificial vision.
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