Driving With Hemianopia VII: Predicting Hazard Detection With Gaze and Head Scan Magnitude

One rehabilitation strategy taught to individuals with hemianopic field loss (HFL) is to make a large blind side scan to quickly identify hazards. However, it is not clear what the minimum threshold is for how large the scan should be. Using driving simulation, we evaluated thresholds (criteria) for gaze and head scan magnitudes that best predict detection safety.

Seventeen participants with complete HFL and 15 with normal vision (NV) drove through 4 routes in a virtual city while their eyes and head were tracked. Participants pressed the horn as soon as they detected a motorcycle (10 per drive) that appeared 54 degrees eccentricity on cross-streets and approached toward the driver.

Those with HFL detected fewer motorcycles than those with NV and had worse detection on the blind side than the seeing side. On the blind side, both safe detections and early detections (detections before the hazard entered the intersection) could be predicted with both gaze (safe 18.5 degrees and early 33.8 degrees) and head (safe 19.3 degrees and early 27 degrees) scans. However, on the seeing side, only early detections could be classified with gaze (25.3 degrees) and head (9.0 degrees).

Both head and gaze scan magnitude were significant predictors of detection on the blind side, but less predictive on the seeing side, which was likely driven by the ability to use peripheral vision. Interestingly, head scans were as predictive as gaze scans.

The minimum scan magnitude could be a useful criterion for scanning training or for developing assistive technologies to improve scanning.