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Prospects and Limitations of Spatial Resolution

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Artificial Vision

Abstract

Our sense of vision permanently captures, transmits and interprets enormous amounts of visual information. The amount of visual information that can be transmitted to the brain by the means of visual prosthesis will be severely limited and thus also limit the rehabilitation prospects of such devices. While several parameters contribute to the information content of visual stimuli, this chapter concentrates essentially on spatial resolution.

The first part of the chapter is dedicated to discuss the results of simulation studies of prosthetic vision on normal subjects. These studies aimed to respond to the question of how much visual information should be transmitted to the brain to rehabilitate patients. The amount of visual information, necessary to accomplish daily living tasks (such as reading, eye-hand coordination or whole body mobility) is task-dependent and not only image resolution itself, but also other parameters such as the size of the effective visual field seem to be important.

In the second part of the chapter we tried to discuss to which extent the information made available by the stimulation device is lost or degraded before reaching the brain. The experience with actual retinal implants shows us that only part of the information provided by the device finds its way to the central nervous system and that this information loss can be highly variable from patient to patient: the spatial resolution provided by the devices corresponds rarely to the spatial resolution perceived by the patients.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Distinct percepts of light produced by stimulating the visual system by other means than light.

  2. 2.

    Perceived phosphenes are distributed in a way that they can be easily interpreted by the visual system – they spatially represent the original image.

  3. 3.

    Their experimental setup is closest to our ‘random forest’ setup (Fig. 4.4).

  4. 4.

    These authors use a highly simplified (predictable) environment probably closest to our ‘indoor course’ (Fig. 4.3).

  5. 5.

    A recent paper [35] tried to compare functional performance of the two devices.

  6. 6.

    Several research groups work on the question of highly localized retinal stimulation using in vitro or vivo setups or computer models [e.g., 36–40].

  7. 7.

    High stimulation currents risk damaging either the retinal tissue, or the electrode material, or both. The smaller the stimulating electrode surface (and consequently the higher the spatial resolution of the device), the lower are the currents that can be used to stimulate while respecting such security limits. The latter also depend on electrode material.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ophthalmology, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland

    Jörg Sommerhalder

  2. Western Switzerland Cochlear Implants Center, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland

    Angélica Pérez Fornos

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  1. Jörg Sommerhalder
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  2. Angélica Pérez Fornos
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Correspondence to Jörg Sommerhalder .

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  1. Munich, Germany

    Veit Peter Gabel

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Sommerhalder, J., Pérez Fornos, A. (2017). Prospects and Limitations of Spatial Resolution. In: Gabel, V. (eds) Artificial Vision. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41876-6_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41876-6_4

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