Vision Loss Impact on Navigation in Virtual Reality

Part of paid clinical trials in Rochester, New York.

Sponsor
University of Rochester
Study ID
NCT06047717
Status
Recruiting
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Conditions

  • Hemianopia
  • Hemianopia, Homonymous
  • Hemianopsia
  • Hemianopsia, Homonymous
  • Occipital Lobe Infarct
  • Quadrantanopia
  • Quadrantanopsia
  • Stroke Hemorrhagic
  • Stroke, Ischemic
  • Vision Loss Partial
  • Visual Field Defect, Peripheral

Eligibility Criteria

Sex
ALL
Age
21 Years - 75 Years
Healthy Volunteers
Accepted

Interventions

  • Virtual Reality Driving Task — OTHER
    Participants will steer a virtual car with the goal of staying in the center of a single-lane roadway while traveling at a constant speed of 26.6 m/s (approximately 60 miles/hr). The roadway alternates between a series of straights and turns of different radii to both the left and the right. This allows for careful control of task difficulty, and for the repeated presentation of specific conditions across multiple "trials" (i.e. turns in the road) in a randomized order. In addition, the density of the visual texture elements in the virtual environment that provide optic flow (OF) signal is also varied. The low-density OF condition has no road texture or foliage, and only the solid road edges on a flat-black ground plane. The medium-density OF condition has sparse textural elements distributed on the ground plane, and the high-density OF condition has high density road texture and a canopy of road-side trees that provide texture extending far above the horizon.

Study Details

The purpose of this research is to better understand the impact of cortically-induced blindness (CB) and the compensatory strategies subjects with this condition may develop on naturalistic behaviors, specifically, driving. Using a novel Virtual Reality (VR) program, the researchers will gather data on steering behavior in a variety of simulated naturalistic environments. Through the combined use of computer vision, deep learning, and gaze-contingent manipulations of the visual field, this work will test the central hypothesis that changes to visually guided steering behaviors in CB are a consequence of changes to the visual sampling and processing of task-related motion information (i.e., optic flow).

Key Dates

Start date
Nov 28, 2023
Status verified
Jan 2026
Primary completion
Oct 31, 2028
Completion
Oct 31, 2028

Study Design

Enrollment
40 participants (estimated)
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE

Arms

  • Experimental: Virtual Reality (VR) Driving Task: Cortically Blind Cohort
    Persons who have sustained cortical blindness will perform a driving task in VR, in which they must steer through a series of parameterized turns while maintaining their virtual vehicle centered between the two red lines delineating the "road" edge.
  • Experimental: Virtual Reality (VR) Driving Task: Healthy Control Cohort
    Healthy controls with no vision loss will perform a driving task in VR, in which they must steer through a series of parameterized turns while maintaining their virtual vehicle centered between the two red lines delineating the "road" edge.

Primary Outcome Measure

Virtual Reality (VR) Lane Deviation / Offset [ Time Frame: Day 0 ]

Central Contacts

Locations (1)

FacilityCityStateZIPSite coordinators
University of RochesterRochesterNew York14642
Evan Burr
[email protected]
585-275-5234
Krystel Huxlin, PhD (PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR)

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University of Rochester· Rochester, NY

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