Contingency evaluation of gaze-contingent displays for real-time visual field simulations.

The visual field is the area of space that can be seen when an observer fixates a given point. Many visual capabilities vary with position in the visual field and many diseases result in changes in the visual field. With current technology, it is possible to build very complex real-time visual field simulations that employ gaze-contingent displays. Nevertheless, there are still no established techniques to evaluate such systems. We have developed a method to evaluate a system's contingency by employing visual blind spot localization as well as foveal fixation. During the experiment, gaze-contingent and static conditions were compared. There was a strong correlation between predicted results and gaze-contingent trials. This evaluation method can also be used with patient populations and for the evaluation of gaze-contingent display systems, when there is need to evaluate a visual field outside of the foveal region.