The challenges of developing a contrast-based video game for treatment of amblyopia

Perceptual learning of visual tasks is emerging as a promising treatment for amblyopia, a developmental disorder of vision characterized by poor monocular visual acuity. The tasks tested thus far span the gamut from basic psychophysical discriminations to visually complex video games. One end of the...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Hussain, Zahra, Astle, Andrew T., Webb, Ben S., McGraw, Paul V.
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Frontiers Media 2014
Online Access:	http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37849/ http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37849/ http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37849/ http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37849/1/fpsyg-05-01210.pdf

id	nottingham-37849
recordtype	eprints
spelling	nottingham-378492018-06-26T12:36:58Z http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37849/ The challenges of developing a contrast-based video game for treatment of amblyopia Hussain, Zahra Astle, Andrew T. Webb, Ben S. McGraw, Paul V. Perceptual learning of visual tasks is emerging as a promising treatment for amblyopia, a developmental disorder of vision characterized by poor monocular visual acuity. The tasks tested thus far span the gamut from basic psychophysical discriminations to visually complex video games. One end of the spectrum offers precise control over stimulus parameters, whilst the other delivers the benefits of motivation and reward that sustain practice over long periods. Here, we combined the advantages of both approaches by developing a video game that trains contrast sensitivity, which in psychophysical experiments, is associated with significant improvements in visual acuity in amblyopia. Target contrast was varied adaptively in the game to derive a contrast threshold for each session. We tested the game on 20 amblyopic subjects (10 children and 10 adults), who played at home using their amblyopic eye for an average of 37 sessions (approximately 11 h). Contrast thresholds from the game improved reliably for adults but not for children. However, logMAR acuity improved for both groups (mean = 1.3 lines; range = 0–3.6 lines). We present the rationale leading to the development of the game and describe the challenges of incorporating psychophysical methods into game-like settings. Frontiers Media 2014-11-03 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37849/1/fpsyg-05-01210.pdf Hussain, Zahra and Astle, Andrew T. and Webb, Ben S. and McGraw, Paul V. (2014) The challenges of developing a contrast-based video game for treatment of amblyopia. Frontiers in Psychology, 5 . 1210/1-1210/17. ISSN 1664-1078 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01210 doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01210 doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01210
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
building	Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	Perceptual learning of visual tasks is emerging as a promising treatment for amblyopia, a developmental disorder of vision characterized by poor monocular visual acuity. The tasks tested thus far span the gamut from basic psychophysical discriminations to visually complex video games. One end of the spectrum offers precise control over stimulus parameters, whilst the other delivers the benefits of motivation and reward that sustain practice over long periods. Here, we combined the advantages of both approaches by developing a video game that trains contrast sensitivity, which in psychophysical experiments, is associated with significant improvements in visual acuity in amblyopia. Target contrast was varied adaptively in the game to derive a contrast threshold for each session. We tested the game on 20 amblyopic subjects (10 children and 10 adults), who played at home using their amblyopic eye for an average of 37 sessions (approximately 11 h). Contrast thresholds from the game improved reliably for adults but not for children. However, logMAR acuity improved for both groups (mean = 1.3 lines; range = 0–3.6 lines). We present the rationale leading to the development of the game and describe the challenges of incorporating psychophysical methods into game-like settings.
format	Article
author	Hussain, Zahra Astle, Andrew T. Webb, Ben S. McGraw, Paul V.
spellingShingle	Hussain, Zahra Astle, Andrew T. Webb, Ben S. McGraw, Paul V. The challenges of developing a contrast-based video game for treatment of amblyopia
author_facet	Hussain, Zahra Astle, Andrew T. Webb, Ben S. McGraw, Paul V.
author_sort	Hussain, Zahra
title	The challenges of developing a contrast-based video game for treatment of amblyopia
title_short	The challenges of developing a contrast-based video game for treatment of amblyopia
title_full	The challenges of developing a contrast-based video game for treatment of amblyopia
title_fullStr	The challenges of developing a contrast-based video game for treatment of amblyopia
title_full_unstemmed	The challenges of developing a contrast-based video game for treatment of amblyopia
title_sort	challenges of developing a contrast-based video game for treatment of amblyopia
publisher	Frontiers Media
publishDate	2014
url	http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37849/ http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37849/ http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37849/ http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37849/1/fpsyg-05-01210.pdf
first_indexed	2018-09-06T12:49:57Z
last_indexed	2018-09-06T12:49:57Z
_version_	1610862504458584064

The challenges of developing a contrast-based video game for treatment of amblyopia

Similar Items