Abstract
Virtual reality has great potential in training road safety skills to individuals with low vision but the feasibility of such training has not been demonstrated. We tested the hypotheses that low vision individuals could learn useful skills in virtual streets and could apply them to improve real street safety. Twelve participants, whose vision was too poor to use the pedestrian signals were taught by a certified orientation and mobility specialist to determine the safest time to cross the street using the visual and auditory signals made by the start of previously stopped cars at a traffic-light controlled street intersection. Four participants were trained in real streets and eight in virtual streets presented on 3 projection screens. The crossing timing of all participants was evaluated in real streets before and after training. The participants were instructed to say “GO” at the time when they felt the safest to cross the street. A safety score was derived to quantify the GO calls based on its occurrence in the pedestrian phase (when the pedestrian sign did not show DON’T WALK). Before training, > 50% of the GO calls from all participants fell in the DON’T WALK phase of the traffic cycle and thus were totally unsafe. 20% of the GO calls fell in the latter half of the pedestrian phase. These calls were unsafe because one initiated crossing this late might not have sufficient time to walk across the street. After training, 90% of the GO calls fell in the early half of the pedestrian phase. These calls were safer because one initiated crossing in the pedestrian phase and had at least half of the pedestrian phase for walking across. Similar safety changes occurred in both virtual street and real street trained participants. An ANOVA showed a significant increase of the safety scores after training and there was no difference in this safety improvement between the virtual street and real street trained participants. This study demonstrated that virtual reality-based orientation and mobility training could be as efficient as real street training in improving street safety in individuals with severely impaired vision.
Highlights
The National Eye Institute of the United States of America estimated that 2 million Americans suffered from low vision and 1 million suffered blindness in 2010 and the numbers will double in 2030 [1, 2]
Low vision participants were pseudo-randomly assigned to a virtual street training group and a real street training group, which received Orientation and Mobility (O&M) skill training in virtual streets presented by a Virtual Reality (VR) simulator and in comparable real streets, respectively
Twelve qualified low vision participants were enrolled into the research (Table 2)
Summary
Low vision has profound negative impacts on the individual’s physical and psychological wellbeing, personal independence, employment and quality of life [3]. Only 15% of the individuals with low vision have no usable vision (light perception or worse). Rehabilitation is the primary treatment option for individuals with low vision [5]. It provides a wide range of professional services that enable individuals to maximize the use of their remaining vision, to supplement impaired vision with other sensory inputs and to learn alternative strategies to perform daily tasks
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