Investigating the Impact of Simulated Cataracts on Driving Performance Metrics and Eye Movements

Description

Cataracts, is a prevalent visual impairment and poses challenges for millions globally [1]. In this thesis you investigate the impact of cataracts, focusing on disparities in eye movements during simulated cataracts experiences in virtual reality (VR) compared to normal or corrected vision. Drawing inspiration from prior research methodologies, we want you to continue developing a VR simulation framework in Unreal Engine, offering precise control over parameters like occlusion, visual acuity, contrast, colour shifts, dark shadows, and glaring lights. Where you will continue to work on adding parameters to achieve a cataract simulation. Diverging from previous studies, our analysis centres on understanding how these parameters affect task performance. Using statistics on the eye tracking and head movement data to discern variations between normal or corrected vision and vision impaired by cataract.

The objective is to establish a correlation between eye movements and simulated cataracts parameters. In conclusion, visual impairments like cataracts significantly impact daily tasks. One outcome could be to suggest that deviations in eye movements can be detected before users notice visual changes, offering potential as an early indicator for visual impairments.

You will

• Perform a literature review
• Modify an existing VR environment
• Implement an preprocessing pipeline for eye-tracking data
• Collect and analyze eye-tracking data using statistics
• Summarize your findings in a thesis and present them to an audience
• (Optional) co-writing a research paper

You need

• Strong communication skills in English
• Good knowledge of Unity
• Good knowledge of R libraries for statistics

References

• [1] World report on vision. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2019. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
• [2] Seddon, J., Fong, D., West, S. K., & Valmadrid, C. T. (1995). Epidemiology of risk factors for age-related cataract. Survey of ophthalmology, 39(4), 323-334.
• [3] Krösl, K. (2020). Simulating vision impairments in virtual and augmented reality (Doctoral dissertation, Wien).
• [4] Jones, P. R., & Ometto, G. (2018, March). Degraded reality: using VR/AR to simulate visual impairments. In 2018 IEEE Workshop on Augmented and Virtual Realities for Good (VAR4Good) (pp. 1-4). IEEE.