Systems and methods for evaluating human eye tracking

Inventors

GROSS, Adam Todd • HUNFALVAY, Melissa

Assignees

RightEye LLC

Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed for evaluating human eye tracking. One method includes receiving data representing the location of and/or information tracked by an individual's eye or eyes before, during, or after the individual performs a task; identifying a temporal phase or a biomechanical phase of the task performed by the individual; identifying a visual cue in the identified temporal phase or biomechanical phase; and scoring the tracking of the individual's eye or eyes by comparing the data to the visual cue.

Core Innovation

The invention evaluates human eye movement and vision performance by generating an electronic user interface that displays one or more visual cues of where an individual should look during a task conducted using the user interface. For each visual cue, the system determines a target range associated with a timing of the cue, where each target range defines a viewing area around the visual cue. The user interface prompts the individual to respond to the one or more visual cues displayed.

The invention receives data of the individual’s response to the one or more visual cues, including the individual’s identification of the one or more visual cues and data representing a location where the individual’s eye or eyes are looking relative to the target range defining the viewing area around each visual cue, before, during, or after the task. The invention detects one or more saccades or fixations from the received data, and identifies, based on the detected saccades or fixations, one or more smooth pursuit eye movements from the received data.

Based on any identified smooth pursuit eye movements, the invention evaluates the individual’s visual tracking and acuity, and evaluates the individual’s vision performance using either the individual’s identification of the one or more visual cues or the identified smooth pursuit eye movements. The invention then quantifies the individual’s response to the one or more visual cues based on the evaluation of visual tracking and acuity and the evaluation of vision performance, and outputs one or more quantified results of the evaluation of the individual’s response to the visual cues.

Claims Coverage

The independent claims cover an evaluation method, a corresponding evaluation system, and a non-transitory computer readable medium. Across these independent claims, the core coverage includes an electronic user interface with visual cues, definition of target ranges, prompting and response data collection, detection of saccades/fixations and identification of smooth pursuit eye movements, evaluation of visual tracking and acuity, evaluation of vision performance, quantification of the response, and output of quantified results. The independent claims each include the same principal set of inventive features.

Across independent claims, the patent’s claim coverage centers on presenting timed visual cues via an electronic user interface, using target ranges to define viewing areas, collecting eye-location response data relative to the target ranges, detecting saccades/fixations and identifying smooth pursuit eye movements, and then evaluating visual tracking and acuity and vision performance to produce and output quantified evaluation results. The system and medium claims correspond to the same evaluation method executed by processor instructions.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications