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A pair of battery powered glasses that have an active LCD shutter system, which allows an easy and mobile way to produce a stroboscopic effect. They should not be confused with other glasses such as the active shutter 3D system, which presents an image to one eye while blocking the other in a rapid fashion producing a stereographic 3D image. Stroboscopic eyewear allows the visual field to be perceived intermittently at variable frequencies and duty ratios to both eyes at the same moment.

Technology

Such battery powered eyewear achieves the stroboscopic effect by sending electricity through each liquid crystal display (LCD) lens. When there is no voltage being sent through the lenses they are opaque and when there is voltage being sent through the lenses are transparent. The frequency at which the eyewear alternates between opaque and transparent is usually adjustable to several different frequencies, while duty ratio, the duration that the lenses stay opaque, is either preset or adjustable depending on the manufacturer. Current models available are capable of varying between presenting the effect to both eyes simultaneously, the left eye, or the right eye individually.

Research

Smith & Mitroff along with Applebaum, and Holiday have used stroboscopic eyewear, in particular the Nike Vapor Strobes ®, to provide suboptimal conditions for the visual perceptual-motor processing system.

Anticipation Response

Smith & Mitroff had participants wear stroboscopic eyewear while viewing a series of LED lights that, when lit up in a temporal sequence from left to right, provided a sense of motion even though participants did not move. Participants had two controls in their hands – one to start the movement and one to hit when they predicted the last LED would light up. The sequence of the light stimulus initiated randomly between 0.5 and 3.0 seconds and traveled at a set 2.25 seconds/meter (5 mph) lasting 1.78 seconds. According to researchers, the participants that wore the stroboscopic eyewear for 10 trials showed "significantly more [accuracy] immediately after training, [were] more likely to respond early than to respond late immediately after training and 10 minutes later, and [were] more consistent in their timing estimates immediately after training and 10 minutes later."

Short-Term Memory

Applebaum et al. found that groups that used stroboscopic eyewear while throwing and catching a tennis ball showed enhanced retention of information in their short-term memory both immediately after training and 24-hours afterwards.

Dynamic Visual Acuity

Holiday observed that the group that wore stroboscopic eyewear improved both their catching performance (over the training cycle) and their Dynamic Visual acuity (DVA) score (after only one training session) while the control group only improved their catching performance. Holiday noted how the stroboscopic eyewear group maintained their DVA scores two weeks post-training where the control groups' DVA score decreased.

Generalized Learning

Applebaum et al. performed a robust study and observed an increase in visual cognition in a range of tasks and contexts. Researchers observed slight central field of vision enhancements in motion detection and significant improvement of central field visual attention while either throwing and catching a tennis ball in a lab or on the field with football players and ultimate frisbee players. They found no effect on sustained attention with the stroboscopic eyewear. Researchers hypothesized that the effect may be generalizable across multiple tasks and couldn't falsify their claim when they did a follow-up experiment.

Implications

This research implies that intermittent visual stimuli created by the stroboscopic eyewear has an immediate positive effect on the mammalian visual-motor system that lasts 24 hours to two weeks.

Underlying Biological Systems Affected

Schmolesky et al. researched the onset latencies of primate (macaques) visual areas and the results showed that the two-streams in the primate visual system (the M/dorsal stream involved in motion perception and tracking and the P/ventral stream involved in object recognition and color coding) respond with distinctly different activation patterns. Schmolesky concludes:

"In short, M stream areas respond rapidly and concurrently while their P stream counterparts respond slowly and sequentially showing [that] a functional separation in response timing exists."

Since visual processing requires a specific sequential order, and the current hypothesis is that the visual cortex is thought to operate what some call the two-streams hypothesis, then the stroboscopic eyewear may create error in the temporal pattern associated with both streams. The effect also may exist due to the delay in transmission of an electrical impulse from the visual phototransduction of light through the retina. If this two-stream hypothesis is true, then the dorsal stream or parietal stream (aka the "How" or "Where" streams) may be challenged because optical flow is delayed and therefore alters action selection mechanisms in the basal ganglia and cerebellum. The ventral stream (aka the "What" stream) may be affected by wearing stroboscopic eyewear due to challenging the current system to encode the same amount of information, but in shorter durations (less than a second). This effect on the ventral stream may also relate to Alva Noë's sensorimotor profile theory.

Applications

Being able to have such easy and mobile access to the benefits that stroboscopic eyewear provide allows for many types of applications.

Sport

The increased visual cognition has already been demonstrated in soccer, football, hockey, and ultimate frisbee, and may have further applications in other sports where movement recognition and anticipatory timing is vital such as baseball, tennis, and race car driving.

Also, it's important to note that there have been results that demonstrate the ability to train without physically moving while still improving visual cognition. This implies that training can be done without the need for large spaces or for injured athletes to take the field.

Military/Tactical

Advanced military or tactical training scenarios have used strobe lights to push the limits of visual cognition. Training in stroboscopic eyewear could provide the same effect for those involved in public law enforcement or the armed forces because discerning between relevant optical flow and distractors could be a life-or-death skill.

Motion Sickness

Reschke, Somers, & Ford found that stroboscopic vision alleviates motion sickness because it reduces retinal slip during smooth pursuit, which is a common side effect of space travel.

Safety Concerns

It should be noted that a strobe light can produce seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. Stroboscopic eyewear may elicit a similar response. Also, stroboscopic eyewear should not be used while operating machinery.

Controversy

The production of the Nike Vapor Strobes ® were abruptly discontinued in April 2013. It is rumored that Nike sold the patent and that another large sports company will be producing them. Further research also reveals there to be another stroboscopic eyewear company in Japan, PRIMARY, which has held copyright since 2011.

See Also

• Vision therapy

External Links

• http://dynamicvision.jp/ - Japanese Company PRIMARY
• http://today.duke.edu/2011/05/nikestrobe - Duke Psychology Research group
• http://hplusmagazine.com/2013/11/17/improved-visual-cognition-through-stroboscopic-training/
• http://mjimpulsemilitary.com/index.html - MJ Impulse Law and Military