Grant: Industrial Research Chairs

The aging demographics clearly indicate that the mean age of the North American population is increasing rapidly. Presbyopia is a well-known consequence of the aging human eye. Almost 100% of the population will be faced with this problem in the 50s and the majority of humans will show signs of presbyopia in the 40s. Because near vision is increasingly important in the work environment and for leisure, an adequate correction strategy for this problem becomes a primordial issue for the aging population. The number of people that require new presbyopic corrections each year in Canada is huge and increasing each year. This market will certainly create many new job opportunities and will require specialized highly qualified personnel. Over the past five years in the NSERC-Essilor Industrial Research Chair on Visual Perception and Presbyopia, we have demonstrated innovative strategies and elucidated interesting scientific questions that were driven by applied needs. The consequence is that Essilor, based on research findings, has successfully implemented a series of designs related to specific and measurable human behaviors. Other work from the research Chair has lead to patent applications and will be available in the form of licenses. The Chair has also developed very specialized and unique expertise in regards to the simulation of ophthalmic distortions in a full-immersive virtual environment and we have become a unique training site for this type of manipulation. The continued work of the research chair will build on techniques and expertise that we have developed with immersion virtual reality techniques. It will have three main orientations: 1) Simulation of distortions and their consequence on human performance, 2) Specific eye-head strategies used by observers in ecological environments, 3) Visual and visual-motor performance chances as a function of additional sensory inputs (multisensory integration).