Beneficial effects of spatial remapping for reading with simulated central field loss

PURPOSE. People with central field loss (CFL) lose information in the scotomatous region. Remapping is a method to modify images to present the missing information outside the scotoma. This study tested the hypothesis that remapping improves reading performance for subjects with simulated CFL. METHODS. Circular central scotomas, with diameters ranging from 48 to 168, were simulated in normally sighted subjects using an eye tracker on either a head-mounted display (HMD) (experiments 1, 2) or a traditional monitor (experiment 3). In the three experiments, reading speed was measured for groups of 7, 11, and 13 subjects with and without remapping of text. RESULTS. Remapping increased reading speed in all three experiments. On the traditional monitor, it increased reading speed by 34% (88), 38% (128), and 35% (168). In the two HMD experiments, remapping increased reading speed only for the largest scotoma size, possibly due to latency of updating of the simulated scotoma. CONCLUSIONS. Remapping significantly increased reading speed in simulated CFL subjects. Additional testing should examine the efficacy of remapping for reading and other visual tasks for patients with advanced CFL.