Psychophysics of Reading - Normal and Low Vision

描述（由申请人提供）：阅读的心理物理学-正常和低视力摘要阅读困难是五百万美国低视力患者视力丧失的最严重后果之一。 难以获得印刷品对教育、就业、社会交往和娱乐造成障碍。 目前正在向数字文件的制作和分发过渡，这为视力障碍者带来了新的机会。 计算机和移动的设备上的数字文档允许轻松操纵打印大小、对比极性、字体、页面布局和文本的其他属性。 简而言之，我们现在有前所未有的机会来调整文本格式，以满足视障读者的需求。 近年来，我们的实验室和视觉科学界的其他人在理解不同形式的低视力对阅读的影响以及阅读表现对关键文本属性（如字符大小和对比度）的依赖性方面取得了重大进展。 但是阅读技术的创新已经超越了我们对低视力阅读的认识。 在将这些实验室发现转化为定制文本的方法方面仍然存在一个重大差距 为视力低下的人提供的显示器。 当前提案的广泛目标是应用我们关于视力障碍对阅读影响的知识，提供工具和方法，以提高数字阅读技术的现代世界中的阅读可及性。 我们的研究计划有三个具体目标： 1)开发和验证阅读视力的MNREAD测试的电子版本，将该技术扩展到除印刷尺寸之外的重要文本变量，并开发用于为低视力读者定制文本属性选择的方法。 MNREAD是视觉研究中最广泛使用的阅读测试，最初是在我们实验室与NIH的支持下开发的。 2)调查低视力阅读的生态，以更好地了解现代技术，如iPad和Kindle是如何被低视力人群使用的。 我们计划评估使用互联网方法调查低视力个体的阅读行为和目标的可行性，并通过互联网收集视觉功能的近似测量。 我们亦计划开发一个“易读性检查器”，以协助低视力电脑使用者及其家人评估特定文字显示器的易读性。 3)通过开发扩大视觉跨度（无需移动眼睛即可识别的相邻字母数量）的方法，提高阅读的可及性。 视觉跨度的缩短被认为是限制低视力阅读的主要因素，特别是对于黄斑变性导致的中心视野丧失的人。 我们已经展示了扩大周边视觉的视觉跨度的方法。 我们计划开发一种更有效的感知训练方法来扩大视觉跨度，目的是提高中央视觉丧失患者的阅读表现。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Psychophysics of Reading - Normal and Low Vision Abstract Reading difficulty is one of the most disabling consequences of vision loss for five million Americans with low vision. Difficulty in accessing print imposes obstacles to education, employment, social interaction and recreation. The ongoing transition to the production and distribution of digital documents brings about new opportunities for people with visual impairment. Digital documents on computers and mobile devices permit easy manipulation of print size, contrast polarity, font, page layout and other attributes of text. In short, we now hae unprecedented opportunities to adapt text format to meet the needs of visually impaired readers. In recent years, our laboratory and others in the vision-science community have made major strides in understanding the impact of different forms of low vision on reading, and the dependence of reading performance on key text properties such as character size and contrast. But innovations in reading technology have outstripped our knowledge about low-vision reading. A major gap still exists in translating these laboratory findings into methods for customizing text displays for people with low vision. The broad aim of the current proposal is to apply our knowledge about the impact of vision impairment on reading to provide tools and methods for enhancing reading accessibility in the modern world of digital reading technology. Our research plan has three specific goals: 1) To develop and validate an electronic version of the MNREAD test of reading vision, to extend this technology to important text variables in addition to print size, and to develop methods for customizing the selection of text properties for low-vision readers. MNREAD is the most widely used test of reading in vision research and was originally developed in our laboratory with NIH support. 2) To investigate the ecology of low-vision reading in order to better understand how modern technologies, such as iPad and Kindle are being used by people with low vision. We plan to evaluate the feasibility of using internet methods to survey low-vision individuals concerning their reading behavior and goals, and of collecting approximate measures of visual function over the internet. We also plan to develop an "accessibility checker" to help low-vision computer users and their families to evaluate the accessibility of specific text displays. 3) To enhance reading accessibility by developing methods for enlarging the visual span (the number of adjacent letters that can be recognized without moving the eyes). A reduced visual span is thought to be a major factor limiting reading in low vision, especially for people with central-field loss from macular degeneration. We have already demonstrated methods for enlarging the visual span in peripheral vision. We plan to develop a more effective perceptual training method for enlarging the visual span, with the goal of improving reading performance for people with central-vision loss.