Eye movement - a mirror of brain activity without surgical intervention.

Eye movement

The what and how of the functioning of the human brain has always fascinated people who think scientifically. For example, the brilliant mathematician and game theorist John von Neumann devised theories about the interaction of the nervous system with the external environment. In turn, legendary physicist Albert Einstein admitted that, “Compared to a child’s play, theoretical physics is child’s play.” Neuroscience and optical science as an important part of neuroscience are united by opposites. So said Camillo Golgi, who shared the 1906 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with his opponent in theory, Ramón Cajal. Perception studies can now be conducted with millisecond precision using the methods of non-contact optical science.

The origins of the BUFPI optical science research direction can be traced back to the Optometry and Optical Science Department of the LU Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. This is the institution at which the Head of the Optical Science Laboratory, Dr. Phys. Roberts Paeglis, received his Master’s Degree in optometry and science doctorate in physics, in the sub-field of medical physics. The education in optometry provided by the University of Latvia offers a very broad basis in medicine, chemistry and physics.

BUFPI considers optical science to have major potential, because, in analysing the movements of the human eye, researchers can study textbooks, the achievements of sports stars, homepages, advertising copy and even store layouts. The idea to develop this research direction as a business product was born quite unexpectedly - professionals working in the corresponding fields found out about the achievements of optical scientists and wanted to know how they could leverage these for their own benefit.

Research at the Optical Science Laboratory will be conducted in three directions - analysis and improvement of literacy among schoolchildren, eye movement in sports, and optical characteristics in the analysis of marketing activities.

Literacy

Recently conducted studies demonstrate that the achievements of Latvian schoolchildren in the realm of literacy are unsatisfactory and that approximately one fifth of schoolchildren may have difficulty with reading comprehension. At the same time, prior studies conducted by BUFPI scientists demonstrate that textbooks issued in Latvia are highly inconsistent and based on the personal intuition of their authors, as opposed to set, scientifically grounded canons that can aid readers in their understanding of the text. More particularly - if a teacher relies entirely on his intuition, he may overestimate the comprehension of pupils by as much as eight years. Two adults – the author of the book and the reviewer – mutually conclude that the book is acceptable, even though quite possibly it is incomprehensible to a child. Every textbook has its own text and picture layout idiosyncrasies, which affect perceptibility of the teaching material. This can be assessed with the assistance of monitoring of the eye movement of schoolchildren and the so-called “literacy formula”. Eye movement monitoring is an innovative and modern method of visual information perception that is globally used and has become the most effective instrument for assessing perception of text and graphic information. In turn, literacy formulas make it possible to assess the difficulty of a text depending on the structure of words and sentences and their deployment within the text, accordingly assigning it a number corresponding to the difficulty of the text (recommended reader’s age group, pupil’s class, etc.).

Sports research

BUFPI studies will help sports educators, trainers and other specialists to assess the abilities of young athletes objectively. An active partnership has already been initiated between the BUFPI Optical Science Laboratory and the Latvian Academy of Sports Education – researchers are travelling to monitor the Academy's students using BUFPI equipment, and subsequently consulting educators. The experience of researchers shows that unless a child receives special training, he will fail to watch the ball or his opponent’s hands or feet, and instead will look at the opponent's face and thus lose his awareness of his own position on the court or pitch (see video no.1). Researchers hypothesise that future Latvian national team players are currently very easy to fool.

Major projects for the future are being planned, which will involve the study of talented youngsters in all of Latvia's most popular sports - ice hockey, football, volleyball, biathlon, etc.

Research for marketing services

The third direction involves analysis of the perception of copy and visual materials in the realm of marketing services. BUFPI sees this as a small but promising business niche for which the client base could consist of advertising, marketing and public relations agencies which require homepage analysis, as well as analysis of product descriptions, labels, instruction manuals and other materials. EU standards even exist in regard to summaries of product characteristics for medicines with the aim of ensuring that they can also be understood by the elderly. In this case, too, the BUFPI Optics Laboratory can produce analyses of the perceptibility of text, which could be useful to the respective clients.