Abstract
Purpose :
Individuals with homonymous hemianopia (HH) report and have (measurable) difficulties watching television and movies. We investigated whether that difficulty may arise from differences in eye movements and gaze behavior such as compensatory scanning (quick changes in gaze towards the blind hemifield: glimpses).
Methods :
We compared viewing patterns between individuals with HH (N=24) and with normal vision (NV; N=60) when watching 30-second video clips. We compared saccade characteristics (main sequence), average gaze locations (“heatmaps”), gaze offset from center of interest, and video scan path (NSS) between the groups. Also, we identified glimpses by the subjects with HH and asked whether more glimpses improved comprehension of the clip.
Results :
We found that: (1) Saccades into the blind side were faster (p<0.001); (2) most subjects with left HH tended to look to the left of people with NV (9/12); (3) gaze of subjects with HH was less coherent (lower NSS scores; p<0.001); and (4) The number of glimpses was not related to comprehension of visual information (p=0.494).
Conclusions :
The eye movement patterns of people with HH were different from those of viewers with NV and their glimpses were not beneficial to watch TV. Thus, while beneficial in other circumstances, (vision rehabilitation) training of compensatory eye movements towards the blind side appears to provide no benefit watching TV.
This is a 2020 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.