Assessing Binocular Central Visual Field and Binocular Eye Movements in a Dichoptic Viewing Condition

Macular degeneration typically results in heterogeneous binocular central visual defects. Currently available approaches to assess central visual field, like the microperimetry, can test only one eye at a time. Therefore, they cannot explain how the defects in each eye affect the binocular interaction and real-world function. Dichoptic stimulus presentation with a gaze-controlled system could provide a reliable measure of monocular/binocular visual fields. However, dichoptic stimulus presentation and simultaneous eye-tracking are challenging because optical devices of instruments that present stimulus dichoptically (e.g., haploscope) always interfere with eye-trackers (e.g., infrared video-based eye-trackers). Therefore, the goals were 1) to develop a method for dichoptic stimulus presentation with simultaneous eye-tracking, using 3D-shutter glasses and 3D-ready monitors, that is not affected by interference and 2) to use this method to develop a protocol for assessing central visual field in subjects with central vision loss. The results showed that this setup provides a practical solution for reliably measuring eye-movements in dichoptic viewing condition. In addition, it was also demonstrated that this method can assess gaze-controlled binocular central visual field in subjects with central vision loss.