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Train Your Eyes to See Better with this Neuroscientist-Developed iPad App

20 Feb 2014

What if you could improve your eyesight just by playing around with an app? Or if you could see things from further away than you ever could before just by using your iPad? It may sound like science fiction, but UltimEyes is all science and no fiction. A neuroscientist from the University of California, Riverside created it and based on evidence from his localized study, it effectively improved the vision of some players to 20/7.5.

Neuroscientist Aaron Seitz developed the UltimEyes app to help increase a person’s visual capabilities. Based on proven methods used in the lab, Seitz’ app confronts the user’s eyes with patterns called Gabor stimuli, which trains the brain to process the information more efficiently and ultimately improves a person’s ability to see clear visions at further distances.

After creating the app, Seitz tested it on 19 players on the UC Riverside baseball team. Players’ vision improved, on average, by 31 percent. Many increased their vision beyond the normal 20/20 and seven players tested at 20/7.5 vision, which means they were able to clearly see what someone with normal vision would only be able to see from 7.5 feet away.

“We were using standard, on-the-wall eye charts,” Seitz said in an interview with Popular Mechanics. “Normally, you stand 20 feet away, but our charts only measured down to 20/10[vision]. So we moved some of these players 40 feet away from the eye chart and they were still reading the low lines. I was shocked.”

UltimEyes is not being kept under wraps in the lab. With the help of Carrot Neurotechnology, the app has been made available to the public. You can get it now in the App Store for the iPad ($5.99).You will be asked to register your information so that Seitz and his team of neuroscientists can help you keep track of your progress.

Seitz told Popular Mechanic that he is continuing his brain training work and plans to apply it in other ways. “I’m trying to develop a larger set of programs that address an entire suite of issues,” he said. Seitz will be working on improving hearing and enhancing memory in the future.

http://www.padgadget.com/2014/02/20/train-your-eyes-to-see-better-with-this-neuroscientist-develope...