Κατεύθυνση Γνωσιακή Επιστήμη
Library of the School of Science

2018-10-05

2018

Rassia Aikaterini-Eleonora

Κωνσταντίνος Μουτούσης, Αναπληρωτής Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Φιλοσοφίας της Επιστήμης, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
John Pezaris, Assistant Professor, Department of Neurosurgery, Harvard Medical School
Γεώργιος Γιαννακόπουλος, Ερευνητής, Εθνικό Κέντρο Έρευνας Φυσικών Επιστημών, Δημόκριτος

A study of experience-driven changes in performance on a simulated artificial vision reading task

English

A study of experience-driven changes in performance on a simulated artificial vision reading task

In simulations of artificial vision, various psychophysical tasks have been administered for examining performance and its development through training over different periods of time. Practice-related effects have been found with eccentric reading for human subjects and with letter recognition tasks for non-human primates. However, the time course of learning to adapt to phosphene vision in a more complex task such as reading has yet to be addressed in humans. Here, as part of the development of a thalamic visual prosthesis, we show the beneficial aspects of training to read under a simulation of artificial sight, over a period of at least eight weeks and with the use of a gaze contingent architecture. Specifically, we investigated how normal, sighted subjects adapt to phosphene vision by examining the learning process of reading simple sentences out loud in 20-minute sessions on a daily or a near-daily basis in a task based on the MNREAD visual assessment. Eight subjects practiced reading novel sentences presented on a computer monitor and updated with a real-time gaze contingent mechanism that reveals more detail at the point of regard, simulating a thalamic visual prosthesis. Sentences were presented at five font sizes (logMAR 1.0-1.4) through three center-weighted phosphene patterns (2000, 1000, 500 phosphenes) or a control condition with text in unadulterated form. Reading accuracy (fraction of words read correctly) and reading speed (number of correctly read words per minute) was measured across sessions. We found that through training, reading speed exhibited an increase equivalent to doubling of phosphene count. Most importantly, the hardest condition (smallest font size through 500 phosphenes), while initially illegible, proved highly usable after training. Our findings are promising for the clinical design of a thalamic prosthesis and essential for designing post-implant rehabilitation strategies.

Science

artificial vision, visual prosthesis, thalamic prosthesis, simulation, reading

No

0

Yes

86

68

File access is restricted only to the intranet of UoA.

https://pergamos.lib.uoa.gr/uoa/dl/object/2800864