Visual search and reading in patients with macular degeneration - eye movements and mathematical modelling

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As consequence of the progredient loss of foveal vision due to macular degeneration, processes of reorganization have to take place in order to reduce the impairment of visual and cognitive capacities. The aim of the planned joint project is to investigate visual deficiencies and compensatory adaptation processes at different levels of description, i.e. cognitive and cortical. The present project will elucidate the impact of macular pathology on visual search and reading, which both involve complex interactions of visuospatial attention and other cognitive control processes, and are of great relevance to everyday life. Our research questions are: What is the detailed nature of the behavioral impairments MD patients experience in visual search and reading? How can these impairments be related to neuroanatomical and neurophysiological changes in the retina and/or the visual cortex as investigated by the Hoffmann project? Which compensatory strategies in visual search and reading do patients develop in order to deal with their impairments, how functional are these, and how are they possibly neuroanatomically reflected? We plan to address these questions mainly by collecting psychophysical and eyemovement data and by mathematical modelling of these data. In addition, models will be used to relate deficits and compensatory strategies in active vision to the multimodal imaging results obtained in the two other participating projects.