Event Date
Speaker
Abstract
Abstract - When macular degeneration affects the foveae bilaterally, it results in a binocular scotoma that compromises both high-acuity vision and eye movements. A preferred retinal locus (PRL) is eventually adopted for fixation and oculomotor reference, but individuals still struggle with daily-living tasks as they are often unaware of the location and extent of their scotoma. Current methods of detailed scotoma mapping are mainly monocular; very few methods offer the same level of precision for binocular scotoma. In this brown bag, I will present my work done at Smith-Kettlewell in the last two years as a postdoctoral fellow. First, I will present a new eyetracker-based method to map precisely the binocular scotoma. Second, I will present how we use this detailed map to investigate in a visual search task how saccades compensate for the scotoma, which obscures parts of the visual scene.
Improving Zoom accessibility for people with hearing impairments
People with hearing impairments often use lipreading and speechreading to improve speech comprehension. This approach is helpful but only works if the speaker’s face and mouth are clearly visible. For the benefit of people with hearing impairments on Zoom calls, please enable your device’s camera whenever you are speaking on Zoom, and face the camera while you speak. (Feel free to disable your camera when you aren’t speaking.)