SIMULATION OF LOW-VISION EXPERIENCE BY USING A HEAD-MOUNTED VIRTUAL REALITY SYSTEM

In this study, a system for simulating low-vision experience was developed by using immersive virtual reality technology. The proposed system consisted of a wide-view head-mounted display and an eye tracker that could modify the display in concert with real-time fixation patterns to restrict an arbitrary area of the human visual field. We conducted an experiment to evaluate the validity of the proposed system. Subjects were asked to walk through a small maze under two visual conditions in which 10 degrees of their central visual field was restricted artificially with black circles using the proposed system. Under one of the visual conditions, the restriction moved synchronously with the subjects' eye movement so that the 10 degrees of the central fovea was always restricted despite eye movement; on the other hand, under the other condition, the restriction could not move. The experiment results indicated that the time for walking through the entire maze under the visual condition with 10 degrees of the central visual field restricted in synchronization with eye movement was longer than that under the condition in which 10 degrees of the fixed central area of the screen were restricted. Further, the amplitude of the walking trajectory on a straight pass under the visual condition with 10 degrees of the central visual field restricted in synchronization with eye movement was higher than that under the condition in which 10 degrees of the fixed central area of the screen was restricted. The influence of the eye-following movement of the restricting black circles and the validity of the proposed system were investigated.