New tech developed at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris enables people to write in cursive using their eyes. Research highlights: Gaining complete volitional control over smooth pursuit eye movements – Cursive eye writing can be generated at will after little training – Persons deprived of limb movement can enjoy creative means of communication.
Research summary:
The eyes never cease to move: ballistic saccades quickly turn the gaze toward peripheral targets, whereas smooth pursuit maintains moving targets on the fovea where visual acuity is best. Despite the oculomotor system being endowed with exquisite motor abilities, any attempt to generate smooth eye movements against a static background results in saccadic eye movements. Although exceptions to this rule have been reported [3,4,5], volitional control over smooth eye movements is at best rudimentary. Here, I introduce a novel, temporally modulated visual display, which, although static, sustains smooth eye movements in arbitrary directions. After brief training, participants gain volitional control over smooth pursuit eye movements and can generate digits, letters, words, or drawings at will. For persons deprived of limb movement, this offers a fast, creative, and personal means of linguistic and emotional expression.
Author: Jean Lorenceau
(Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Centre de Recherche de l’Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière, CNRS UMR-7225, Inserm UMR S975, GH Pitié-Salpêtrière – Bâtiment ICM, 47 Bld de l’Hôpital, 75651 Paris Cedex 13, France)
Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.
Current Biology, 26 July 2012
New research enables cursive writing with your eyes
Retaining the ability to communicate effectively can be one of the key challenges facing those who suffer a severe restriction in mobility. Conditions such as Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) can reduce a persons capacity for voluntary movement to the eyes only, though even this is not always possible. When eye movement is possible however, it offers an opportunity for communication and expression, as previously highlighted by the Eyewriter project. New research conducted at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris may offer a further breakthrough in this area by enabling writing in cursive using only eye movements.
Though most of us regularly move our eyes in sophisticated ways during our daily lives, we are normally unable to control these movements smoothly in any direction, hence making the tracing of cursive writing by eye movement impossible, until now. The new eye-writing technology works by tricking the eye’s neuromuscular machinery into voluntarily producing smooth eye movements in arbitrary directions.
This is achieved by the use of changes in contrast through a specially designed display which comprises 500 disks of identical contrast (∼1 degree of visual angle) changing polarity about the mean luminance over time at ∼10 Hz. This produces an optical illusion called reverse-phi motion which allows viewers to essentially follow their own eye movements.
“Contrary to the current belief, we show that one can gain complete, voluntary control over smooth pursuit eye movements,” explains Jean Lorenceau of Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris. “The discovery also provides a tool to use smooth pursuit eye movements as a pencil to draw, write, or generate a signature.”
The discovery that such eye movement was possible came accidentally: Lorencau was moving his own eyes in front of an unusual visual display in his laboratory and, while doing so, he discovered some odd effects, such as being able to see his own eye movements. Following a relatively short time spent practicing, the scientist was then able to take finer control over these movements and reports a speed of 25 letters per minute to be achievable, though each individual’s speed will depend on the amount of time spent training.
Besides enabling disabled people to communicate more effectively, Lorenceau’s work could prove useful in several other areas. For example the technology could be implemented to help athletes and surgeons train their eyes more effectively. Also, though not cited specifically by the scientist and his team, it doesn’t take too big a leap to imagine the technology being used as a control system in augmented reality display devices like Google’s Project Glass.
By Adam Williams
Source: gizmag.comc, 29/7/2012