Gaze-based evaluation of functional vision in activity of daily life

In October 2021, I joined the OptiVisT network as a PhD student supervised by Eli Brenner within the Sensorimotor Control group in the Department of Behavioural and Movement Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Personal Background and Interest:

I have completed a Bachelor in Psychobiology and a Master in Neuroscience and Neuropsychological Rehabilitation at the University of Padova, Italy. Since my first traineeships, I have been exploring several aspects of visual perception. My current research interest is on how vision works within more realistic scenarios, including a more complex visual stimulation and the possibility of action upon the environment.

Aim of the project:

The aim of this project is to explore gaze behavior during activities of daily life (ADL), where multiple tasks are often performed simultaneously and the most relevant information to execute a task may not always be clear. Employing the state-of-the-art eye tracking technology, we will develop methods to characterize where people normally look under natural circumstances for several tasks. We will then use this knowledge to investigate the relationship between visual disorders and gaze when performing such daily activities. We will focus on possible differences between healthy and clinical populations as well as possible compensatory strategies that people with visual impairments use to adjust their gaze.

Current activities:

To date, I have primarily developed new ways to describe where people look when climbing a staircase based on eye movements. Stair climbing was chosen because it is a good representative of a daily life task in which gaze is not strictly dictated by the task but clearly could be important. The first study revealed that there are some differences between people’s gaze strategy when climbing stairs in a familiar setting compared to doing so in laboratory settings as was done in previous studies. Another finding was that there is a lot of variability in the way people look when navigating staircases, showing that individual differences also have to be considered when exploring task-related visual strategies.

These findings show that participant’s expectations about how difficult the task will be and how their performance might differ between participants. In relation to the goals of the current project, these findings should be considered when designing experimental set-ups, especially when testing people with visual deficiencies.

Future directions:

Future planned projects will focus on the investigation of compensatory strategies that people with visual impairment (e.g., hemianopia) or with no residual vision (i.e., blindness) may employ during ADL. Additionally, we will explore how gaze may be influenced by lighting conditions, as this is another important factor when considering activities in daily life.