Efficacy οf Wet Age-related Macular Degeneration Treatment οn Reading: A Pilot Study Using Eye-movement Analysis.

SIGNIFICANCE: Functional vision, as evaluated with silent passage reading speed, improves after anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) treatment in patients with wet age-related macular antidegeneration (wAMD), reflecting primarily a concomitant reduction in the number of fixations. Implementing eye movement analysis when reading may better characterize the effectiveness of therapeutic approaches in wAMD. PURPOSE: This study aimed to evaluate silent reading performance by means of eye fixation analysis before and after anti-VEGF treatment in wAMD patients. METHODS: Sixteen wAMD patients who underwent anti-VEGF treatment in one eye and visual acuity (VA) better than 0.5 logMAR served as the AMD group. Twenty adults without ocular pathology served as the control group. Central retinal thickness and near VA were assessed at baseline and 3 to 4 months after their first visit. Reading performance was evaluated using short passages of 0.4-logMAR print size. Eye movements were recorded using EyeLink II video eye tracker. Data analysis included computation of reading speed, fixation duration, number of fixations, and percentage of regressions. Frequency distributions of fixation durations were analyzed with ex-Gaussian fittings. RESULTS: In the AMD group, silent reading speed in the treated eye correlated well with central retinal thickness reduction and improved significantly by an average of 15.9 ± 28.5 words per minute (P = .04). This improvement was accompanied by an average reduction of 0.24 ± 0.38 in fixations per word (P = .03). The corresponding improvement in monocular VA was not statistically significant. Other eye fixation parameters did not change significantly after treatment. No statistically significant differences were found in the control group. CONCLUSIONS: Visual acuity tests may underestimate the potential therapeutic effects after anti-VEGF treatment in patients with relatively good acuity who are being treated for wAMD. Evaluating silent reading performance and eye fixation parameters may better characterize the effectiveness of therapeutic approaches in wAMD patients.

Comparing silent reading performance for single sentences and paragraphs: an eye movement-based analysis.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Reading performance in clinical practice is commonly evaluated by reading 'aloud' and 'as fast as possible' single sentences. Assessing comprehensive silent reading performance using passages, composed of multiple sentences, is the preferred reading mode in real-life reading conditions. BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to compare eye movement-based silent reading performance for standardised short sentences and paragraphs. METHODS: A group of 15 young volunteers (age range: 22-36 years) read silently and comprehensively in two sessions: (a) a paragraph with continuous text and (b) standardised short sentences. Text print size was 0.4 logMAR (1.0 M at 40 cm distance). Eye movements during reading were recorded using video oculography (EyeLink II, SR Research Ltd). Data analysis included computation of reading speed, fixation duration, the number of fixations, saccadic amplitude and percentage of regressions. Moreover, frequency distributions of fixation durations were analysed with ex-Gaussian fittings. RESULTS: Repeatability coefficient in silent reading speed was found better for the paragraph (66 wpm) than for short sentences (88 wpm). The superiority in repeatability coefficient for the corresponding eye movement parameters, i.e. fixation duration (35 vs 73 ms), regressions (10.1 vs. 22.3%) and fixations per word (0.21 vs. 0.37 fpw), was even more pronounced. In addition, a statistically significant improvement with the paragraph was found in average fixation duration (19 ± 26 ms, p = 0.02), regressions (4.2 ± 7.0%, p = 0.04) and ex-Gaussian fixation parameter, τ (82 vs. 111 ms). No statistically significant difference was found between average reading speed with the paragraph (220 ± 59 wpm) and the short sentences (206 ± 57 wpm) (p = 0.11). DISCUSSION: Due to their superior repeatability, paragraphs are preferable to short sentences when evaluating silent comprehensive reading. The concurrent recording of eye movement parameters in silent reading further improves variability and could offer an efficient measure of reading performance and a reliable biomarker of visuo-motor function.

eSEE-d: Emotional State Estimation Based on Eye-Tracking Dataset.

Affective state estimation is a research field that has gained increased attention from the research community in the last decade. Two of the main catalysts for this are the advancement in the data analysis using artificial intelligence and the availability of high-quality video. Unfortunately, benchmarks and public datasets are limited, thus making the development of new methodologies and the implementation of comparative studies essential. The current work presents the eSEE-d database, which is a resource to be used for emotional State Estimation based on Eye-tracking data. Eye movements of 48 participants were recorded as they watched 10 emotion-evoking videos, each of them followed by a neutral video. Participants rated four emotions (tenderness, anger, disgust, sadness) on a scale from 0 to 10, which was later translated in terms of emotional arousal and valence levels. Furthermore, each participant filled three self-assessment questionnaires. An extensive analysis of the participants' answers to the questionnaires' self-assessment scores as well as their ratings during the experiments is presented. Moreover, eye and gaze features were extracted from the low-level eye-recorded metrics, and their correlations with the participants' ratings are investigated. Finally, we take on the challenge to classify arousal and valence levels based solely on eye and gaze features, leading to promising results. In particular, the Deep Multilayer Perceptron (DMLP) network we developed achieved an accuracy of 92% in distinguishing positive valence from non-positive and 81% in distinguishing low arousal from medium arousal. The dataset is made publicly available.

Presbyopia correction with multifocal contact lenses: Evaluation of silent reading performance using eye movements analysis.

PURPOSE: Many activities of daily living rely on reading, thus is not surprising that complaints from presbyopes originate in reading difficulties rather in visual acuity. Here, the effectiveness of presbyopia correction with multifocal contact lenses (CLs) is evaluated using an eye-fixation based method of silent reading performance. ΜETHODS: Visual performance of thirty presbyopic volunteers (age: 50 ± 5 yrs) was assessed monocularly and binocularly following 15 days of wear of monthly disposable CLs (AIR OPTIX™ plus HydraGlyde™, Alcon Laboratories) with: (a) single vision (SV) lenses - uncorrected for near (b) aspheric multifocal (MF) CLs. LogMAR acuity was measured with ETDRS charts. Reading performance was evaluated using standard IReST paragraphs displayed on a screen (0.4 logMAR print size at 40 cm distance). Eye movements were monitored with an infrared eyetracker (Eye-Link II, SR Research Ltd). Data analysis included computation of reading speed, fixation duration, fixations per word and percentage of regressions. RESULTS: Average reading speed was 250 ± 68 and 235 ± 70 wpm, binocularly and monocularly, with SV CLs, improving statistically significantly to 280 ± 67 (p = 0.002) and 260 ± 59 wpm (p = 0.01), respectively, with MF CLs. Moreover, fixation duration, fixations per word and ex-Gaussian parameter of fixation duration, µ, showed a statistically significant improvement when reading with MF CLs, with fixation duration exhibiting the stronger correlation (r = 0.79, p < 0.001) with improvement in reading speed. The correlation between improvement in VA and reading speed was moderate (r = 0.46, p = 0.016), as was the correlation between VA and any eye fixation parameter. CONCLUSION: Average silent reading speed in a presbyopic population was found improved with MF compared to SV CL correction and was faster with binocular compared to monocular viewing: this was mainly due to the faster average fixation duration and the lower number of fixations. Evaluating reading performance using eye fixation analysis could offer a reliable outcome of functional vision in presbyopia correction.

Modelling changes in the prevalence of childhood myopia.

PURPOSE: To re-examine the changes with time in the underlying patterns of individual refraction at different ages, which have led to an increased prevalence of myopia in a population of Asian children. METHODS: Using published cross-sectional longitudinal data, the frequency distributions of spherical equivalent refractive error (SE) in yearly cohorts of 6- and 12-year-old Japanese children during the period 1984-1996 were modelled in terms of ex- and bi-Gaussian distributions. RESULTS: Both models suggested that over the period of the study, little change occurred in the SE frequency distributions for 6-year-olds, with most children having SEs near emmetropia. In contrast, in each annual cohort of 12-year-olds, although the SE of some children remained near-emmetropic, a sub-set failed to maintain emmetropia. Most of this group became more myopic between 6 and 12 years of age. The proportion of children showing myopic progression increased over the period of study. CONCLUSIONS: The observed increase in mean levels of myopia in older Japanese children in the late 20th century is due to a greater proportion of children failing to maintain emmetropisation between the ages of 6 and 12, rather than to myopic shifts in all children. Some children, with small SE changes between 6 and 12 years of age, would not have benefitted from any treatment intended to slow myopia progression.

Review of Eye Tracking Metrics Involved in Emotional and Cognitive Processes.

Eye behaviour provides valuable information revealing one's higher cognitive functions and state of affect. Although eye tracking is gaining ground in the research community, it is not yet a popular approach for the detection of emotional and cognitive states. In this paper, we present a review of eye and pupil tracking related metrics (such as gaze, fixations, saccades, blinks, pupil size variation, etc.) utilized towards the detection of emotional and cognitive processes, focusing on visual attention, emotional arousal and cognitive workload. Besides, we investigate their involvement as well as the computational recognition methods employed for the reliable emotional and cognitive assessment. The publicly available datasets employed in relevant research efforts were collected and their specifications and other pertinent details are described. The multimodal approaches which combine eye-tracking features with other modalities (e.g. biosignals), along with artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques were also surveyed in terms of their recognition/classification accuracy. The limitations, current open research problems and prospective future research directions were discussed for the usage of eye-tracking as the primary sensor modality. This study aims to comprehensively present the most robust and significant eye/pupil metrics based on available literature towards the development of a robust emotional or cognitive computational model.

COLET: A dataset for COgnitive workLoad estimation based on eye-tracking.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The cognitive workload is an important component in performance psychology, ergonomics, and human factors. Publicly available datasets are scarce, making it difficult to establish new approaches and comparative studies. In this work, COLET-COgnitive workLoad estimation based on Eye-Tracking dataset is presented. METHODS: Forty-seven (47) individuals' eye movements were monitored as they solved puzzles involving visual search activities of varying complexity and duration. The participants' cognitive workload level was evaluated with the subjective test of NASA-TLX and this score is used as an annotation of the activity. Extensive data analysis was performed in order to derive eye and gaze features from low-level eye recorded metrics, and a range of machine learning models were evaluated and tested regarding the estimation of the cognitive workload level. RESULTS: The activities induced four different levels of cognitive workload. Multi tasking and time pressure have induced a higher level of cognitive workload than the one induced by single tasking and absence of time pressure. Multi tasking had a significant effect on 17 eye features while time pressure had a significant effect on 7 eye features. Both binary and multi-class identification attempts were performed by testing a variety of well-known classifiers, resulting in encouraging results towards cognitive workload levels estimation, with up to 88% correct predictions between low and high cognitive workload. CONCLUSIONS: Machine learning analysis demonstrated potential in discriminating cognitive workload levels using only eye-tracking characteristics. The proposed dataset includes a much higher sample size and a wider spectrum of eye and gaze metrics than other similar datasets, allowing for the examination of their relations with various cognitive states.

Deep learning for diabetic retinopathy detection and classification based on fundus images: A review.

Diabetic Retinopathy is a retina disease caused by diabetes mellitus and it is the leading cause of blindness globally. Early detection and treatment are necessary in order to delay or avoid vision deterioration and vision loss. To that end, many artificial-intelligence-powered methods have been proposed by the research community for the detection and classification of diabetic retinopathy on fundus retina images. This review article provides a thorough analysis of the use of deep learning methods at the various steps of the diabetic retinopathy detection pipeline based on fundus images. We discuss several aspects of that pipeline, ranging from the datasets that are widely used by the research community, the preprocessing techniques employed and how these accelerate and improve the models' performance, to the development of such deep learning models for the diagnosis and grading of the disease as well as the localization of the disease's lesions. We also discuss certain models that have been applied in real clinical settings. Finally, we conclude with some important insights and provide future research directions.

Assessing Variability in Reading Performance with the New Greek Standardized Reading Speed Texts (IReST).

SIGNIFICANCE: This article evaluates the standardized Greek version of the International Reading Speed Texts (IReST) set, which enriches interlanguage comparisons and international clinical studies of reading performance. Moreover, it investigates how specific textual and subject-related characteristics modulate the variability of reading speed across texts and readers. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop a standardized Greek version of the IReST set and investigate how specific textual and subject-related factors modulate the variability of reading speed across texts and readers. METHODS: The English IReST texts were translated to Greek and matched for length, content, and linguistic difficulty. The Greek IReSTs were presented at a distance of 40 cm and size of 1 M to assess reading speeds of 25 normally sighted native speakers (age range, 18 to 35 years). The participants read the texts aloud while reading time was measured by stopwatch. Reading performance included measurement of reading speed in three units of analysis. Reading efficiency was assessed using a word-level oral reading task. Statistical analysis included evaluation of subject- and text-related variability, as well as correlations between reading speed and specific textual and subject-related factors. RESULTS: The average reading speed between texts was 208 ± 24 words/min, 450 ± 24 syllables/min, and 1049 ± 105 characters/min. Differences between readers accounted for the 76.6%, whereas differences across texts accounted for the 23.4% of the total variability of reading speed. Word length (in syllables per word) and median word frequency showed a statistically significant contribution to the variability of reading speed (r = 0.95 and 0.70, respectively). Reading speed was also statistically correlated with word reading efficiency (r = 0.68). CONCLUSIONS: The addition of the Greek version in the IReST language pack is expected to be a valuable tool for clinical practice and research, enriching interlanguage comparisons and international studies of reading performance.