WO2002069788A1 - Caracterisation des anomalies du controle de la fixation de l'oeil, en particulier, la dyslexie - Google Patents

Caracterisation des anomalies du controle de la fixation de l'oeil, en particulier, la dyslexie Download PDF

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Publication number
WO2002069788A1
WO2002069788A1 PCT/GB2002/000823 GB0200823W WO02069788A1 WO 2002069788 A1 WO2002069788 A1 WO 2002069788A1 GB 0200823 W GB0200823 W GB 0200823W WO 02069788 A1 WO02069788 A1 WO 02069788A1
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WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
eye
fixation
signals
eye fixation
pointing direction
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Application number
PCT/GB2002/000823
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English (en)
Inventor
Donald Nigel Jarrett
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Qinetiq Limited
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Publication date
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Publication of WO2002069788A1 publication Critical patent/WO2002069788A1/fr

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    • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
    • A61—MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; HYGIENE
    • A61B—DIAGNOSIS; SURGERY; IDENTIFICATION
    • A61B5/00—Measuring for diagnostic purposes; Identification of persons
    • A61B5/16—Devices for psychotechnics; Testing reaction times ; Devices for evaluating the psychological state
    • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
    • A61—MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; HYGIENE
    • A61B—DIAGNOSIS; SURGERY; IDENTIFICATION
    • A61B3/00—Apparatus for testing the eyes; Instruments for examining the eyes
    • A61B3/10—Objective types, i.e. instruments for examining the eyes independent of the patients' perceptions or reactions
    • A61B3/113—Objective types, i.e. instruments for examining the eyes independent of the patients' perceptions or reactions for determining or recording eye movement

Definitions

  • the present invention relates to a device for use in the detection, characterisation and mitigation of eye fixation control problems and to use of the device in the diagnosis of eye fixation control problems, particularly dyslexia and to methods of diagnosing, characterising and correcting such problems.
  • This impairment of fixation control or wobble has been found to have a magnitude of about 1 °, which corresponds to about four or five letters in normal typescript, and it is this that tends to transpose the apparent order of letters - the most common expression of the condition.
  • the wobble of the left eye is not correlated with that of the right eye, so reading with binocular vision is worse than reading with one eye blocked.
  • Corneal reflex eye trackers are known, for example in the following documents: "Method and Apparatus for Locating Image Features," U.S. Patent 5,231,674, July 1993. - Cleveland, D; "Focus Control System,” U.S. Patent 4,974,010, Nov 1990. - Cleveland, D; "Eye Tracker,” U.S. Patent 3,712,716, Jan 1973. - Cornsweet, T. N.; "Eye Movement Detector,” U.S. Patent 4,836,670, June 1989. - Hutchinson, T. E.; "Control Apparatus Sensitive to Eye Movement," U.S. Patent 3,462,604, August 1969. - Mason, K. A.
  • scleral coil measurement has been suggested using a contact lens with coils embedded therein and Helmholtz coils producing an excitatory magnetic field.
  • Known passive methods for image stabilisation include conventional camcorder image stabilisation and image stabilisation in hand held binoculars.
  • Known active methods include using electronics to stabilise an image.
  • impaired eye fixation control such as may be involved in the phenomenon of dyslexia, could be mitigated by tracking eye movement and stabilising an image in concert with that movement
  • some head shift relative to the optics is inevitable. Therefore, there has been a need to distinguish between eye movement and head/tracker shift.
  • real time measurements i.e. active control
  • Involuntary movement must be isolated from voluntary movement of the eye and this may be achieved by means of a filter which is capable of discriminating between features of movement such as frequency, velocity, acceleration and magnitude.
  • the present invention provides a device suitable for use in the characterisation and mitigation of eye fixation control problems, comprising means for measuring small changes in eye pointing direction and for generating signals which are indicative of such changes, filter means applied to said signals and capable of determining from said signals periods of eye fixation and means, which are applied to said signals only during a period of eye fixation, for dynamically shifting the perceived direction of visual stimuli in response to a measured change in the eye pointing direction.
  • eye tracker measures eye movements over a range of about 10°, which corresponds to a corneal reflex shift of about 1.0mm, preferably to an accuracy of about 0.2°.
  • resolution is about 0.1°, or about 0.01mm shift of the corneal reflex.
  • Sensitivity is therefore most important, and this depends primarily upon the optical magnification of the eye image formed on the surface of the position sensing detector which is used in the eye tracker (conventionally a photodiode) in relation to the sensing area.
  • the optical system in the eye tracker should be dimensioned sufficient to collect as much light as possible to generate sufficient signal, and phase sensitive detection maximises signal to noise ratio.
  • corneal reflex tracker requires that it is helpful to hold the head still relative to the measurement system, because any head shift would also displace the corneal reflex.
  • small head movements are tolerated providing they are within the measurement range and are slow relative to eye wobble.
  • eye and head movements should be distinguishable by virtue of their velocities.
  • the eye tracker is based on a refinement of a well-known optical technique that senses the movements of the corneal-reflex, the small spot caused by reflection of light from the convex cornea.
  • the spot moves by about 1mm for an eye rotation of 10°.
  • the eye tracker is based on the well-known 'corneal reflex' principle in which the displacement of the spot image produced by the reflection of invisible infra-red light from the convex cornea is almost linearly related to changes in eye pointing direction.
  • the overall magnification achieved is about 5:1.
  • the eye tracker optical system includes a focussing lens and a filter which eliminates light outside the illumination spectrum, thus preferably including only about 50nm centred on about 900nm.
  • an embodiment of the device comprises at least one channel, preferably two channels, one for each eye, and each of which comprises a pair of mirrors that give a vertically off-set but otherwise normal view of the target visual stimuli.
  • a first mirror is fixed and a second mirror is lightweight and is mounted on an adjustable platform that can be set to remove any horizontal offset introduced by the mirrors.
  • stabilising the line of sight is achieved by introducing small dynamic angular tilts to the lightweight mirror, in response to the signals from the eye tracker.
  • the platform is moved by actuators constructed by adapting small loudspeaker units.
  • Intentional eye movements for instance when a mature reader is reading text, are a series of short fixations (of about 300msecs duration) separated by one or two rapid saccadic jumps that can be as small as 2° and as large as 40°.
  • the eye rotation reaches a speed of about 500 -1000 sec, and the acceleration/ and deceleration are also fairly high, in the order of 1000 to 5000 °/sec .
  • fixations a subjects eyes are generally controlled to point accurately at the feature of interest, but to counter eye drift the muscles are triggered to make small corrective micro-saccades. These are usually less than V2 0 .
  • the filter is programmed to analyse the signals produced by the eye tracker and to apply a series of tests that take account of the eye velocity and acceleration for an individual and divide the signal into 'jumping' and 'fixating' periods.
  • the filter calculates the angular magnitude, frequency and velocity of eye movements from the measured eye pointing direction and uses this data to distinguish between periods of fixation, periods when the eye is performing a saccadic eye movement and periods when the device shifts relative to the subject's head.
  • the statistical distributions of the calculated angular magnitude, frequency and velocity of the eye pointing direction are computed and may then be used to characterise eye fixation control and in particular to distinguish relatively rapid wobble from the slower shifts attributable to head movement.
  • the filters are described herein as separate horizontal and vertical elements, the computations are based upon shared data.
  • data is shared between the left and right eye channels to characterise the synchronism of the saccadic jumps, and the correlation between the left and right eye wobble during fixations.
  • the filter unit also comprises a recorder which records this data.
  • the eye movement signals with noise, head motion and saccadic jumps removed, drive the dynamic shifting means.
  • an embodiment of a device according to the invention comprises electro-optics which are optimised to meet the measurement requirements described above.
  • the device comprises some flexibility which provides the advantage of minimising both the manufacturing difficulties and the cost of components.
  • the device is compact and robust which provides the advantage of facilitating making the system portable, rather than 'transportable'.
  • the device comprises a battery pack and it is battery-powered.
  • the device includes means for recording eye movement.
  • this comprises an electronic recording apparatus.
  • This provides the advantage that recordings of eye movement signals obtained from a subject having significant eye fixation difficulties such as a marked wobble, can be played back into the stabiliser. This enables individuals with well-stabilised vision to experience the disturbance or wobble.
  • the invention provides use of a device according to a first aspect of the invention in the characterisation of disturbances to eye fixation, for example, eye wobble movements.
  • the invention provides use of a device according to a first aspect of the invention in the diagnosis of eye fixation control problems such as are suggested to be a causal factor in dyslexia.
  • the invention provides apparatus comprising a pair of devices according to a first aspect of the invention in which the devices therein are arranged to co-operate with two eyes independently such that a line of sight from each eye of a subj ect passes through a separate channel.
  • the apparatus is preferably made to resemble a pair of spectacles or binoculars and is so arranged as to allow the wearing of corrective spectacle lenses and be usable by very young children.
  • the advantages conferred by the device of the present invention in enabling the measured eye pointing direction to be used to reduce significantly, or to remove, the deleterious effects of any fixation control difficulties experienced by an individual, will be very important as it will allow the individual to then have the sensation of fixating stably and be better able to judge the effect of alternative test lenses on acuity.
  • the apparatus is arranged so that the correlation between the measured eye pointing directions of the two eyes and/or the correlation between the calculated angular velocities of the two eyes are computed and outputted for use as additional parameters to characterise eye fixation control.
  • the invention provides a method of characterising eye fixation control problems such as dyslexia which comprises use of a device according to a first aspect of the invention or of apparatus according to a fourth aspect with a subject to be investigated, to generate data relating to changes in eye pointing direction for said subject while the subject is fixating on the visual stimuli, outputting said data from the device or apparatus and analysing said data in order to detect anomalies in eye fixation behaviour.
  • eye fixation control problems such as dyslexia
  • the data comprises the angular magnitude, frequency and velocity of changes in eye pointing direction.
  • the invention provides a method of correcting or mitigating eye fixation control problems which 1 comprises use of a device according to a first aspect of the invention or of apparatus according to a fourth aspect of the invention with a subject having significant eye fixation problems.
  • Figure 1 shows a schematic for one channel of a system to measure eye wobble and stabilise vision.
  • the stabiliser operates by dynamically displacing the corners of a small, lightweight, front-silvered, square mirror from a centre-sprung datum position using a set of four solenoid actuators.
  • This can be visualised by imagining facing a square mirror that has been rotated through 45° so that the corners point up, down, left and right. A horizontal deflection of the reflected image would be induced by driving the left and right corners in opposite directions, say forward and backward respectively. Nertical deflections would be produced by similarly opposing movements of the top and bottom corners, and such opposed movements would keep the mirror centre stationary.
  • the actuators are driven as opposed pairs and mounted on a stiff base that could be adjusted to align the reading target within the small field of view.
  • the device comprises at least one channel, more preferably two channels - one for each eye of a subject.
  • the channels are identical and each channel preferably comprises each of the three elements :-
  • a sensitive eye tracker that does not disturb the subject's ability to see over a small field of view of about 10°, and measures the line of sight over the field of view;
  • a filter that can analyse the measurements to distinguish between (1) intentional eye movement, (2) the postulated unintentional eye wobble, (3) artefacts such as head shift;
  • a stabiliser that is driven by only the filtered unintentional eye wobble signals to adjust, the apparent direction of something that the subject can read or examine within the field of view.
  • the device may also include a movement recorder which enables recording of eye movement and a movement player which enables recorded eye movement to be played back.
  • the device is assembled as a robust, compact, portable unit which provides the advantages of:-
  • ophthalmic test lenses to be placed close to the eyes, of a subject to enable the subject to judge their effect on visual acuity
  • the apertures that a subject looks into are adjustable to suit their inter-eye distance (as in a pair of binoculars), and either have soft, stiff, face-shaped cups that can be held against the brow, cheeks and bridge of the nose to hold the apertures as still as possible relative to the face or for a pair of spectacles.
  • the device is provided in a number of alternative sizes needed to accommodate a size range from small children to large adults.
  • test material e.g. text, pictures, a computer screen
  • iii) enabling a tester to insert test lenses in a subject's line of sight so that a subject can assess the effect of the test lenses on acuity without a confounding wobble, iv) enabling a tester to experience a characteristic wobble of a subject.
  • elements of an embodiment of the device are as follows :-
  • the eye tracker must measure eye movements over a range of about 10°, to an accuracy of about 0.2° and a resolution of about 0.1°.
  • the scheme suggested is a refinement of the well-known optical technique that senses the movements of the corneal-reflex, the small spot caused by reflection of light from the convex cornea. The spot moves by about 1mm for an eye rotation of 10°.
  • Figure 1 shows that the viewer looks at the target stimuli through beamsplitter A (as well as the two reflecting surfaces in the stabiliser S and T).
  • the beamsplitter A is transparent to the subject, but it is coated with a layer that reflects infra-red light from the source C, so that the front of the eye is illuminated with invisible light. It is this light that is reflected from the cornea and appears to originate from the small 'corneal-reflex' spot.
  • the means for detecting an optical spot may be a quadrant detector or a position sensing photodiode.
  • the lower beamsplitter is replaced by an angle-deflecting mirror - much like that in the image stabiliser.
  • the angle through which the mirror is deflected is that which is necessary to bring the corneal reflex spot onto the centre of the quadrant, which would supply the direction signals to close the control loop.
  • the mirror deflections are proportional to eye rotation.
  • the rest of the optical elements in the Figure 1 embodiment include a camera that focuses the reflection onto a position-sensing photo-diode F. This generates separate horizontal and vertical signals directly related to the position of the focussed spot on the diode surface, and is reasonably insensitive to fluctuations in the strength of the light or sharpness of focus.
  • the overall magnification would need to be about 5:1.
  • Lens D represents the focussing lens
  • Filter E eliminates light outside the illumination spectrum, say 50nm around 900nm.
  • Beamsplitter B is included so that the camera looks at the eye along the same path as the illumination, and therefore also collects the light that enters the pupil, is back-scattered from the retina and exits via the pupil.
  • the arrangement in the upper left of the figure shows an alternative off-axis illumination that elirninates beamsplitter B and the collection of light backscattered from the retina.
  • the electronic elements of the eye tracker take the horizontal and vertical spot position analogue voltages from the position-sensing photodiode and amplify them to produce a stable pair of signals.
  • Gain and datum adjustments are available to centre and calibrate each dimension so that the output signals have a fixed relationship with look angle. In practice the operator of the equipment would make the adjustment by asking the subject to look at a set of fixed points in the field of view.
  • the function of the filters L and M is to distinguish between (1) intentional eye movement, (2) the postulated unintentional eye wobble, and (3) small head movements. Digital processing is assumed.
  • Intentional eye movements for instance when reading text, are a series of short fixations (of about 300msecs duration) separated by one or two rapid saccadic jumps that can be as small as 2° and as large as 40°.
  • the eye rotation reaches a speed of about 500 -1000 7sec, and the acceleration/ and deceleration are also fairly high, in the order of 1000 to 5000 7sec 2 .
  • fixations the eyes are controlled to point accurately at the feature of interest, but to counter eye drift the muscles are triggered to make small corrective micro-saccades. These are usually less than Vz°.
  • the filter is programmed to analyse the signals produced by the tracker and apply a series of tests that divide the signal into 'jumping' and 'fixating' periods. During the fixating periods the angular magnitude, frequency and velocity of the eye movements are measured and the distributions computed. These parameters are used to characterise the wobble and distinguish the relatively rapid wobble from the slower ⁇ ⁇
  • L and M are shown as separate elements in the figure, the computations are based upon shared data. Also data are shared between the left and right eye channels to characterise the synchronism of the saccadic jumps, and the correlation between the left and right eye wobble during fixations.
  • the filter also records the data.
  • the eye movement signals with noise, head motion and saccadic jumps removed, drive the stabiliser.
  • the stabilisers for the left and right channels consists of pair of mirrors S and T that give a vertically off-set but otherwise normal binocular view of the target.
  • Mirrors S are mounted on adjustable platforms N that can be set to align the target direction for the two eyes.
  • Stabilising the line of sight is done by introducing small dynamic angular tilts to the lightweight mirror S, driven by the outputs from the filter via amplifiers ⁇ and P.
  • the actuators R may be constructed by adapting small loudspeaker units.

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Abstract

La présente invention concerne un dispositif permettant de caractériser et d'atténuer les problèmes de contrôle de la fixation de l'oeil, en particulier la dyslexie. Ce dispositif comprend des moyens conçus pour mesurer des modifications infimes de la direction de fixation de l'oeil, et pour produire des signaux indiquant ces modifications; des moyens filtrants appliqués à ces signaux et permettant de déterminer, à partir desdits signaux, les périodes de fixation de l'oeil, et des moyens commandés par ces signaux uniquement pendant la période de fixation de l'oeil, afin de permettre le décalage dynamique de la direction des stimuli visuels au fur et à mesure de ces derniers sont perçus par l'oeil, en réaction à une modification mesurée de la direction de fixation. Dans un mode de réalisation privilégié, les moyens de décalage dynamique consistent en une paire de miroirs permettant d'obtenir une vision verticalement décalée mais tout à fait normale des stimuli visuels, l'un des miroirs pouvant être déplacé de manière à permettre le décalage dynamique souhaité. De préférence, deux dispositifs sont utilisés, un pour chaque oeil. Ces dispositifs sont conçus comme des lunettes ou comme une paire de jumelles et ils permettent le port de verres de lunettes de correction et/ou s'adaptent à la vérification des lunettes ophtalmiques.
PCT/GB2002/000823 2001-03-02 2002-03-01 Caracterisation des anomalies du controle de la fixation de l'oeil, en particulier, la dyslexie WO2002069788A1 (fr)

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GB0105222.4 2001-03-02
GB0105222A GB0105222D0 (en) 2001-03-02 2001-03-02 Diagnosis of dyslexia

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Cited By (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US9757030B2 (en) 2014-07-03 2017-09-12 Ioannis Aslanis-Aslanidis System and method for the determination of parameters of eye fixation

Citations (4)

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Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4544246A (en) * 1983-06-13 1985-10-01 Sri International System for producing selective stabilization of a portion of the retinal image
EP0279589A1 (fr) * 1987-02-17 1988-08-24 Eye Research Institute Of Retina Foundation Alignement/stabilisateur pour le fond d'oeil
US4889422A (en) * 1986-01-28 1989-12-26 George Pavlidis Method and means for detecting dyslexia
US6099124A (en) * 1999-12-14 2000-08-08 Hidaji; Faramarz Ophthalmological system and method

Patent Citations (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US4544246A (en) * 1983-06-13 1985-10-01 Sri International System for producing selective stabilization of a portion of the retinal image
US4889422A (en) * 1986-01-28 1989-12-26 George Pavlidis Method and means for detecting dyslexia
EP0279589A1 (fr) * 1987-02-17 1988-08-24 Eye Research Institute Of Retina Foundation Alignement/stabilisateur pour le fond d'oeil
US6099124A (en) * 1999-12-14 2000-08-08 Hidaji; Faramarz Ophthalmological system and method

Non-Patent Citations (2)

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Title
HIDETOMO SAKAINO ET AL: "A KALMAN FILTERING WITH A GAZE-HOLDING ALGORITHM FOR INTENTIONALLY CONTROLLING A DISPLAYED OBJECT BY THE LINE-OF-GAZE", IEICE TRANSACTIONS ON FUNDAMENTALS OF ELECTRONICS, COMMUNICATIONS AND COMPUTER SCIENCES, INSTITUTE OF ELECTRONICS INFORMATION AND COMM. ENG. TOKYO, JP, vol. 76A, no. 3, 1 March 1993 (1993-03-01), pages 409 - 424, XP000368437, ISSN: 0916-8508 *
STEIN J: "The neurobiology of reading difficulties", PROSTAGLANDINS LEUKOTRIENES AND ESSENTIAL FATTY ACIDS., vol. 63, no. 1-2, July 2000 (2000-07-01), CHURCHILL LIVINGSTONE MEDICAL JOURNALS, EDINBURGH, GB, pages 109 - 116, XP008004904, ISSN: 0952-3278 *

Cited By (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US9757030B2 (en) 2014-07-03 2017-09-12 Ioannis Aslanis-Aslanidis System and method for the determination of parameters of eye fixation

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