Pedestrian Collision Detection and Avoidance in Cerebral Visual Impairment During Unrestricted Walking in an Immersive Virtual Reality Environment

Walking safely through highly crowded environments is a significant challenge for individuals with cerebral visual impairment (CVI). Yet current ophthalmic examinations do not capture functional visual difficulties related to safe mobility. We developed an immersive virtual reality (VR)-based task that tracked eye gaze behaviors within dynamic areas of interest to assess pedestrian collision detection, avoidance, and associated visual scanning in CVI (n=12) compared to control (n=14) participants. Subjects walked through a simulated shopping mall populated with crowds of varying densities. The testing scenario was presented using a head-mounted display with integrated eye tracking, and locomotor, behavioral, and visual scanning responses were recorded. Compared to controls, CVI participants exhibited a slower mean preferred walking speed. They were also less likely and slower to detect target (colliding) pedestrians and were more likely to make a collision. CVI participants were also slower in making their first fixation and followed a larger visual scan path to find the target pedestrian. They also spent more time fixating on non-target compared to target pedestrians. Finally, CVI participants showed greater variability in their performance (including pathing deviations), reflecting a range of individual strategies, and maintained a larger walking safety margin (spatio-temporal envelope). These results provide objective evidence of mobility and associated gaze behaviors in CVI during navigation through highly crowded environments.