Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics and System Engineering-DIBRIS, University of Genoa, Via all'Opera Pia 13, 16145, Genoa, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2020 Sep 24;10(1):15634. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-72561-y.
Strabismus is a prevalent impairment of binocular alignment that is associated with a spectrum of perceptual deficits and social disadvantages. Current treatments for strabismus involve ocular alignment through surgical or optical methods and may include vision therapy exercises. In the present study, we explore the potential of real-time dichoptic visual feedback that may be used to quantify and manipulate interocular alignment. A gaze-contingent ring was presented independently to each eye of 11 normally-sighted observers as they fixated a target dot presented only to their dominant eye. Their task was to center the rings within 2° of the target for at least 1 s, with feedback provided by the sizes of the rings. By offsetting the ring in the non-dominant eye temporally or nasally, this task required convergence or divergence, respectively, of the non-dominant eye. Eight of 11 observers attained 5° asymmetric convergence and 3 of 11 attained 3° asymmetric divergence. The results suggest that real-time gaze-contingent feedback may be used to quantify and transiently simulate strabismus and holds promise as a method to augment existing therapies for oculomotor alignment disorders.
斜视是一种常见的双眼视轴不平行障碍，与一系列知觉缺陷和社会劣势有关。目前斜视的治疗方法包括通过手术或光学方法来矫正眼位，可能包括视觉训练练习。在本研究中，我们探讨了实时双眼视觉反馈的潜力，这种反馈可用于量化和操纵眼间的对齐方式。当 11 名正常视力的观察者注视仅主导眼呈现的目标点时，会向他们的每只眼独立呈现一个依注视变化的环。他们的任务是将环的中心与目标点的距离控制在 2°以内，持续至少 1 秒，反馈通过环的大小来提供。通过在非主导眼的时间或鼻侧上偏移环，这个任务分别需要非主导眼的会聚或发散。11 名观察者中有 8 名达到了 5°的不对称会聚，3 名达到了 3°的不对称发散。结果表明，实时依注视变化的反馈可用于量化和暂时模拟斜视，并且有望作为一种增强现有眼球运动对齐障碍治疗方法的手段。
