Effect of glaucoma on eye movement patterns and laboratory-based hazard detection ability

Abstract

PurposeThe mechanisms underlying the elevated crash rates of older drivers with glaucoma are poorly understood. A key driving skill is timely detection of hazards; however, the hazard detection ability of drivers with glaucoma has been largely unexplored. This study assessed the eye movement patterns and visual predictors of performance on a laboratory-based hazard detection task in older drivers with glaucoma.MethodsParticipants included 30 older drivers with glaucoma (71±7 years; average better-eye mean deviation (MD) = −3.1±3.2 dB; average worse-eye MD = −11.9±6.2 dB) and 25 age-matched controls (72±7 years). Visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, visual fields, useful field of view (UFoV; processing speeds), and motion sensitivity were assessed. Participants completed a computerised Hazard Perception Test (HPT) while their eye movements were recorded using a desk-mounted Tobii TX300 eye-tracking system. The HPT comprises a series of real-world traffic videos recorded from the driver’s perspective; participants responded to road hazards appearing in the videos, and hazard response times were determined.ResultsParticipants with glaucoma exhibited an average of 0.42 seconds delay in hazard response time (p = 0.001), smaller saccades (p = 0.010), and delayed first fixation on hazards (p<0.001) compared to controls. Importantly, larger saccades were associated with faster hazard responses in the glaucoma group (p = 0.004), but not in the control group (p = 0.19). Across both groups, significant visual predictors of hazard response times included motion sensitivity, UFoV, and worse-eye MD (p<0.05).ConclusionsOlder drivers with glaucoma had delayed hazard response times compared to controls, with associated changes in eye movement patterns. The association between larger saccades and faster hazard response time in the glaucoma group may represent a compensatory behaviour to facilitate improved performance.

Does Glaucoma Alter Eye Movements When Viewing Images of Natural Scenes? A Between-Eye Study

“…Thus, BCEA has been reported to be smaller in glaucoma patients than agesimilar healthy controls. 13,26 Similarly, SAs in glaucoma patients have been reported to be smaller than in controls in some, 15,19 though not all (Smith et al 13 ; Wiecek et al 18 ) previous studies. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that analyzed the angle between saccades to evaluate eye movements of patients with visual field loss.…”

“…Other studies have variously reported difference in saccade rate but not amplitude, 6 number of saccades and spread of fixations but not saccade amplitude, 13 and saccade amplitude but not fixation rate or duration. 19 Some of these ambiguous results may be due to differences in task. However, previous studies also suffer from two limitations, both of which we address in the present study.…”

Predicting artificial visual field losses: A gaze-based inference study

“…This effect was observed in real-life shopping (Sippel et al, 2014), walking (Luo et al, 2008), and driving (Kasneci et al, 2014) tasks. However, the inverse effect (patients avoiding planning saccades within visual field defects) was reported while walking (Vargas-Martín & Peli, 2006), during a visual search task (Wiecek et al, 2012), in scene viewing (N. D. , and during simulated driving (Lee, Black, & Wood, 2017). However, N. D. reported no effect in a visual search task.…”

Roles of motion perception and visual acuity for driving hazard perception

“…Building on past research findings on motion perception and driving, this study was designed to explore the causal relationship between motion perception and driving through a HP test. Past research 10,11,33 have, directly or indirectly, investigated the relationship and correlation between HP and motion perception. Performances of HP and motion perception were measured in different paradigms.…”