Macular degeneration affects eye movement behavior during visual search

Stigchel, Stefan Van der; Bethlehem, Richard A. I.; Klein, Barrie P.; Berendschot, Tos T. J. M.; Nijboer, Tanja C.W.; Dumoulin, Serge O.

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00579

Cited by 64 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Our results align with a more recent study that also showed decreased fixation stability in patients with JMD [51]. Given results from our previous study [29] it is likely that diminished visual acuity in the periphery contributes to this decreased fixational control. Although acuity was not measured in the present study, we assume that acuity diminishes at increased eccentricity for both controls and patients.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Fendrich et al [33] argue that the 1° anchor falls within foveal fixation and the gap-effect thus only occurs for foveal fixation. In a previous study we have shown that a central scotoma combined with peripheral viewing impairs search efficiency and that these results can be explained without the necessity of reorganisation in the visual system [29]. Since the JMD group will use their periphery for both the foveal as well as the peripheral fixation anchor conditions the difference in fixation stability should be minimal.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…These types of fixation phases generally fall well within a 150 to 450 ms. time-scale [28]. In addition, precisely these types of viewing conditions have been shown to be impaired in MD [11], [29]. Infrared eye-trackers allow short but detailed recording at this high temporal resolution as well as detection of trials containing saccades that can subsequently be removed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Decreased Fixation Stability of the Preferred Retinal Location in Juvenile Macular Degeneration

et al. 2014

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Macular degeneration is the main cause for diminished visual acuity in the elderly. The juvenile form of macular degeneration has equally detrimental consequences on foveal vision. To compensate for loss of foveal vision most patients with macular degeneration adopt an eccentric preferred retinal location that takes over tasks normally performed by the healthy fovea. It is unclear however, whether the preferred retinal locus also develops properties typical for foveal vision. Here, we investigated whether the fixation characteristics of the preferred retinal locus resemble those of the healthy fovea. For this purpose, we used the fixation-offset paradigm and tracked eye-position using a high spatial and temporal resolution infrared eye-tracker. The fixation-offset paradigm measures release from fixation under different fixation conditions and has been shown useful to distinguish between foveal and non-foveal fixation. We measured eye-movements in nine healthy age-matched controls and five patients with juvenile macular degeneration. In addition, we performed a simulation with the same task in a group of five healthy controls. Our results show that the preferred retinal locus does not adopt a foveal type of fixation but instead drifts further away from its original fixation and has overall increased fixation instability. Furthermore, the fixation instability is most pronounced in low frequency eye-movements representing a slow drift from fixation. We argue that the increased fixation instability cannot be attributed to fixation under an unnatural angle. Instead, diminished visual acuity in the periphery causes reduced oculomotor control and results in increased fixation instability.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Decreased Fixation Stability of the Preferred Retinal Location in Juvenile Macular Degeneration

et al. 2014

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“…A PRL, or pseudofovea, is often defined as a retinal area used for fixation and/or saccade reference for a task (Crossland, Engel, & Legge, 2011). Studies have shown that stable and effective use of a PRL leads to better visual performance, such as in reading (Crossland, Culham, & Rubin, 2004; Tarita-Nistor, Gonzalez, Markowitz, & Steinbach, 2008) and visual search (Kwon, Nandy, & Tjan, 2013; Van der Stigchel et al, 2013; Walsh & Liu, 2014), highlighting the importance of the development of a PRL for form perception in peripheral vision. Despite its functional significance, the emergence of a PRL in human patients seems to be a rather slow process, taking approximately 6 months (Crossland, Culham, Kabanarou, & Rubin, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating oculomotor and perceptual training to induce a pseudofovea: A model system for studying central vision loss

Liu¹,

Kwon²

2016

Journal of Vision

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People with a central scotoma often adopt an eccentric retinal location (Preferred Retinal Locus, PRL) for fixation. Here, we proposed a novel training paradigm as a model system to study the nature of the PRL formation and its impacts on visual function. The training paradigm was designed to effectively induce a PRL at any intended retinal location by integrating oculomotor control and pattern recognition. Using a gaze-contingent display, a simulated central scotoma was induced in eight normally sighted subjects. A subject's entire peripheral visual field was blurred, except for a small circular aperture with location randomly assigned to each subject (to the left, right, above, or below the scotoma). Under this viewing condition, subjects performed a demanding oculomotor and visual recognition task. Various visual functions were tested before and after training at both PRL and nonPRL locations. After 6–10 hr of the training, all subjects formed their PRL within the clear window. Both oculomotor control and visual recognition performance significantly improved. Moreover, there was considerable improvement at PRL location in high-level function, such as trigram letter-recognition, reading, and spatial attention, but not in low-level function, such as acuity and contrast sensitivity. Our results demonstrated that within a relatively short time, a PRL could be induced at any intended retinal location in normally-sighted subjects with a simulated scotoma. Our training paradigm might not only hold promise as a model system to study the dynamic nature of the PRL formation, but also serve as a rehabilitation regimen for individuals with central vision loss.

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“…They conclude that aging affects the ability to track moving features. Van der Stigchel et al (2013) tested four macular degeneration (MD) patients in a visual search paradigm and contrasted their performance with that of healthy controls with and without a simulated scotoma. Saccadic search latencies for the MD group were significantly longer in both conditions compared to controls.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual perception and visual cognition in healthy and pathological ageing

2014

Frontiers Research Topics

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This volume features state-of-the-art approaches to determining the effects of ageing on visual perception, visual cognition, and visually guided behavior. They incorporate psychophysics, eye movements, electrophysiology, and neuroimaging to determine how ageing affects vision in health and pathology.Brockmole and Logie (2013) present behavioral findings on the visual working memory (VWM) abilities of over 55,000 individuals, aged 8 and 75 years, who were studied on-line to provide an analysis of age-related change in VWM. The results showed that VWM varies over the lifespan, peaking at age 20, to be followed by a sharp linear decline. By the age 55 years, adults possess poorer immediate visual memory than 8 and 9 year olds. Allard et al. (2013) present their work on age-related deficits on second-order motion processing at all temporal frequencies including the ones for which no age-related effect on first-order motion processing has so far been observed. They conclude that aging affects the ability to track moving features. Van der Stigchel et al. (2013) tested four macular degeneration (MD) patients in a visual search paradigm and contrasted their performance with that of healthy controls with and without a simulated scotoma. Saccadic search latencies for the MD group were significantly longer in both conditions compared to controls. Legault et al. (2013) report the results of a study on the capacity of older participants to improve their tracking-speed thresholds in a dynamic, virtual reality environment. Their results show that this capacity is significantly affected by healthy aging but that perceptual-cognitive training can significantly reduce age-related effects in older individuals. Bower et al. (2013) show how perceptual learning can improve motion discrimination for older, compared to younger, individuals under high-and lowcontrast conditions. Both older and younger subjects exhibited lower duration thresholds after training. Graham et al. (2013) focus on patients with early Alzheimer's dementia with respect to the temporal stability of their aesthetic judgments of paintings. They find that the stability of aesthetic judgments for portrait paintings, landscape paintings, and landscape photographs is not different from those of controls, whereas the aesthetic stability for portrait photographs was significantly impaired in the AD group. Hamel et al. (2013) use a driving simulator paradigm with eye-and head-movement recordings in young and old subjects to assess age-related changes in visual exploratory behavior. No significant age effects were found regarding saccadic parameters.In the older subjects head movements increasingly contributed to gaze amplitude. Interestingly, video game-experienced subjects revealed larger saccade amplitudes and a broader distribution of fixations. They conclude that it is essential to consider video game experience in all testing methods using virtual media. Hutchison et al. (2013) investigated the origin of age-related differences in the BOLD signal by comparing its bl...

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Macular degeneration affects eye movement behavior during visual search

Cited by 64 publications

References 20 publications

Decreased Fixation Stability of the Preferred Retinal Location in Juvenile Macular Degeneration

Decreased Fixation Stability of the Preferred Retinal Location in Juvenile Macular Degeneration

Integrating oculomotor and perceptual training to induce a pseudofovea: A model system for studying central vision loss

Visual perception and visual cognition in healthy and pathological ageing

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