Assessing Spatial Processing Deficits in Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI) Using Virtual Reality

使用虚拟现实评估脑视觉障碍 (CVI) 的空间处理缺陷

• 批准号: 10005388
• 负责人: Lotfi Merabet
• 金额: $ 25.11万
• 依托单位: MASSACHUSETTS EYE AND EAR INFIRMARY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-01 至 2022-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10005388
• 关键词: Address; Adolescent; Age; Attention; Behavioral; Blindness; Cerebrum; Child; Clinical assessments; Color; Crowding; Development; Elements; Environment; Environmental Risk Factor; Eye Movements; Focus Groups; Goals; Impairment; Individual; Investigation; Measures; Outcome Measure; Participant; Pattern; Performance; Perinatal; Population; Positioning Attribute; Psychophysics; Reaction Time; Rehabilitation therapy; Research; Schools; Stimulus; Structure; Testing; Toy; United States; Vision; Visual; Visual Pathways; Visual impairment; Visuospatial; Walking; Work; base; behavioral study; cortical visual impairment; design; gaze; improved; indexing; interest; novel; primary outcome; sample fixation; tool; virtual; virtual reality; virtual reality environment; visual performance; visual search; visual stimulus; visual tracking; working group

Project Summary The objective of the proposed research is to better characterize and understand functional vision processing deficits in cerebral/cortical visual impairment (CVI), the leading cause of congenital vision loss in the United States and developed world. Perinatal damage to developing visual pathways and structures leads to impaired visual spatial processing abilities, particularly in the setting of high environmental complexity and attention demands. Standard clinical assessments and traditional psychophysical stimuli fail to characterize these functional vision deficits due to their lack of ecological validity. To address this unmet need, we have developed a novel virtual reality (VR) based testing platform to assess visual spatial processing abilities in tasks that approach real world situations. In this cross-sectional behavioral study, performance in children and adolescents with CVI will be compared to age-matched ocular visual impaired (OVI) individuals as well as neuro-typical developed sighted controls. Using recorded eye tracking metrics, we will characterize visual search performance and the effect of manipulating stimulus factors in the VR environment. Our central hypothesis is that VR based assessment will reveal impairments in visual spatial processing that are not characterized by standard clinical assessments. In our first aim, we will compare visual spatial processing abilities using two VR based visual search tasks. The first is a static object visual search task (the “virtual toy box”) in which participants must search for a toy positioned in an array of distractor elements (other toys). The second is a dynamic object visual search task (the “virtual corridor”) in which participants must search for the principal of a school in a crowd of distractor elements (other individuals walking in a school corridor). In both tasks, visual search performance will be assessed by varying the number of surrounding distractor elements. We hypothesize that in contrast to individuals with OVI and sighted controls, CVI participants will show greater impairment in performance as a function of increasing visual task demands associated with environmental complexity. In the second aim, we will characterize the effect of manipulating environmental factors using the VR environment on spatial processing abilities. We hypothesize that compared to baseline performance, individuals with CVI will reveal improved performance when target saliency is enhanced, while manipulations that decrease overall target saliency and/or increase task complexity will be associated with impaired performance. The proposed work is of great significance given the potential for developing a novel and ecologically valid VR based platform that provides for superior assessment of visual functional deficits in individuals based on their type of visual impairment. Furthermore, this investigation will help lay the ground work for the creation of new adaptive tools and strategies designed for an individual's specific developmental and rehabilitative needs. This is of particular significance for individuals with CVI; a population that has been greatly underserved despite its important

项目摘要 拟议研究的目的是更好地表征和理解功能视觉处理 脑/皮质视觉障碍（CVI）的缺陷，这是联合先天性视力丧失的主要原因 国家和发达国家。对发展视觉途径和结构的围产期损害导致受损 视觉空间处理能力，尤其是在高环境复杂性和注意力的情况下 需求。标准的临床评估和传统的心理物理刺激无法表征这些 功能视觉因其缺乏生态有效性而定义。为了满足这种未满足的需求，我们有 开发了一个基于新颖的虚拟现实（VR）测试平台，以评估视觉空间处理能力 接近现实世界情况的任务。在这项横断面的行为研究中，儿童的表现和 具有CVI的青少年将与年龄匹配的眼视觉障碍（OVI）和 神经典型开发的视力控制。使用记录的眼动追踪指标，我们将表征视觉 搜索性能和在VR环境中操纵刺激因素的影响。我们的中心 假设是基于VR的评估将揭示视觉空间处理中的损害 以标准临床评估为特征。在我们的第一个目标中，我们将比较视觉空间处理 使用两个基于VR的视觉搜索任务的能力。第一个是静态对象的视觉搜索任务（“虚拟玩具” 盒子”），其中参与者必须搜索位于一系列干扰物元素（其他玩具）中的玩具。 第二是动态对象的视觉搜索任务（“虚拟走廊”），参与者必须搜索 一群干扰因素（其他人在学校走廊上行走）中的一所学校的校长。在这两个中 任务，视觉搜索性能将通过改变周围的干扰物元素数量来评估。 我们假设与具有OVI和视力控制的人相比，CVI参与者将显示更大 性能损害是与环境相关的视觉任务需求增加的函数 复杂。在第二个目标中，我们将使用该操纵环境因素的效果 空间处理能力的VR环境。我们假设这与基线性能相比 当目标显着性提高时，患有CVI的人会揭示性能的提高，而操纵 降低总体目标显着性和/或增加任务复杂性将与受损 表现。鉴于开发小说的潜力，拟议的工作具有重要意义 基于生态有效的VR平台，可在 根据他们的视觉障碍类型的个人。此外，这项投资将有助于奠定基础 为创建专为个人特定发展而设计的新的自适应工具和策略的工作 和康复需求。这对于CVI患者特别重要。一个人 大量服务的目的地很重要