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. 2009 Jun;6(3):035008.
doi: 10.1088/1741-2560/6/3/035008. Epub 2009 May 20.

Detection, eye-hand coordination and virtual mobility performance in simulated vision for a cortical visual prosthesis device

Affiliations

Detection, eye-hand coordination and virtual mobility performance in simulated vision for a cortical visual prosthesis device

Nishant R Srivastava et al. J Neural Eng. 2009 Jun.

Abstract

In order to assess visual performance using a future cortical prosthesis device, the ability of normally sighted and low vision subjects to adapt to a dotted 'phosphene' image was studied. Similar studies have been conduced in the past and adaptation to phosphene maps has been shown but the phosphene maps used have been square or hexagonal in pattern. The phosphene map implemented for this testing is what is expected from a cortical implantation of the arrays of intracortical electrodes, generating multiple phosphenes. The dotted image created depends upon the surgical location of electrodes decided for implantation and the expected cortical response. The subjects under tests were required to perform tasks requiring visual inspection, eye-hand coordination and way finding. The subjects did not have any tactile feedback and the visual information provided was live dotted images captured by a camera on a head-mounted low vision enhancing system and processed through a filter generating images similar to the images we expect the blind persons to perceive. The images were locked to the subject's gaze by means of video-based pupil tracking. In the detection and visual inspection task, the subject scanned a modified checkerboard and counted the number of square white fields on a square checkerboard, in the eye-hand coordination task, the subject placed black checkers on the white fields of the checkerboard, and in the way-finding task, the subjects maneuvered themselves through a virtual maze using a game controller. The accuracy and the time to complete the task were used as the measured outcome. As per the surgical studies by this research group, it might be possible to implant up to 650 electrodes; hence, 650 dots were used to create images and performance studied under 0% dropout (650 dots), 25% dropout (488 dots) and 50% dropout (325 dots) conditions. It was observed that all the subjects under test were able to learn the given tasks and showed improvement in performance with practice even with a dropout condition of 50% (325 dots). Hence, if a cortical prosthesis is implanted in human subjects, they might be able to perform similar tasks and with practice should be able to adapt to dotted images even with a low resolution of 325 dots of phosphene.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Picture shows the headset, camera fitted in the center of headset and the checkerboard.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Checkerboard as seen in the headset from a reading distance.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Plot of the mean count time in seconds per board (left) and plot of the mean time in seconds per field (right) as a function of Visit for all the subjects. The different data series in each plot shows different dropout levels. An improvement of task timing with increased practice for all the three different dropout levels in all the subjects is observed.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Average adjusted count time as a function of the number of white fields for 0%, 25% and 50% dropout for the five subjects. The dotted line is the regression line and the solid line shows the expected regression if the mean time to count the fields of each board was the same.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Plot of the mean time per field as a function of Visit. The different data series in each plot show different dropout levels. The placing time to place a checker on a board reduces with increase in practice.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Plot of the mean time per field as a function of Visit. The different data series in each plot show different dropout levels. Placing time to place a checker on a board reduces with increase in practice even with a higher dropout rate.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Virtual maze as seen in the headset.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Plot of the mean time to complete a maze (left) and the number of errors (right) as a function of Visit. The different data series in each plot show different dropout levels.

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