Adaptation to visual field defects with virtual reality scotoma in healthy subjects

Zangemeister WH, Oechsner U: In: Current Oculomotor Research, ed. by Becker et al, Plenum Press, New York 1999, pp.89-92

Normal Subjects (Ss) show a stairstep-overshoot saccadic strategy similar to hemianopic patients either when confronted with a virtual reality model of an artificial hemianopia using eye position feedback (H3 – VRM), or when achieving eccentric fixation using secondary visual feedback (2ndVFB). Here gaze position is displayed simultaneously with the target and the subject learns either to superpose target and eye position feedback, or to position the gaze feedback target up to 9 deg off the target (eccentric fixation), which helps to keep the “blind side” in sight. Using this technique normal Ss confronted with H3 -VRM as well as hemianopic patients minimize their deficit very fast and efficiently, much faster than without 2ndVFB training.