Eye On-Line : Directed Pursuit for eye-writing – EOL

Devising convenient and friendly Man-Machine Communication interfaces for restoring or augmenting cognitive abilities in patients or healthy humans is strongly needed in health and education. We recently discovered and tested a new device based on eye movement control that enables individuals to draw and write using smooth pursuit eye movements at will. After few training sessions with our display, participants were able to generate smooth patterns of internal visuo-motor representations of letters and words recorded and displayed on-line. This reveals that smooth pursuit can be controlled in the absence of an explicit visual driving target to direct one’s gaze so as to write and draw, contrary to previous conclusions. “Directed Pursuit” (DP) offers a personal, emotionally rich way of communication and expression that opens new possibilities and perspectives to scientific studies as well as rehabilitation in patients (ALS, Locked-in syndrome, cerebral palsy, etc.). A preliminary study funded by a PEPs from the CNRS in 2010 proved the feasibility of the project but further support is needed to investigate the novel palette of scientific, technical and social issues emerging from this new paradigm.
Within a two-year project associating researchers, neurologists, a company and an artist, EOL aims at designing a versatile, friendly, light and convenient prototype device for DP, to be routinely used by disabled people. Reaching this goal requires integrating the DP functionalities into a single system, optimizing the learning protocol and measuring learning dynamics with a group of healthy volunteers. Within the course of the project, a group of patients with ALS will follow training sessions to evaluate whether DP brings progress to their interpersonal communication. In parallel, additional functionalities for producing, processing, recognizing and exploiting eye-recordings will be developed.