Perceptual learning can improve the vision of people who already see quite well and those with other conditions. For example, a study tested the approach in 23 young adults, around age 24. Compared with a control group of 20 young adults, the treatment group increased letter recognition speed. Similar training is an effective component in treating amblyopia, also called “lazy eye,” which is the most frequent cause of vision loss in infants and children, affecting 3 percent of the population. It may also improve vision in those with mild myopia (nearsightedness).
It should be acknowledged that some researchers involved in many of these studies have financial ties to GlassesOff. However, other studies with no commercial links obtained similar results, and several scientists I spoke to, including those without ties to GlassesOff, thought the science behind the app was credible. One study published in Psychological Science trained to 16 college-aged adults and 16 older adults (around age 71) with Gabor patch exercises for 1.5 hours per day for seven days. After training, the older adults' ability to see low-contrast images improved to the level that the college-age ones had before training.
Scientists don't know exactly how perceptual learning relieves presbyopia, but they have clues based on how our brain processes visual information.
After first taking in “raw data” of an image through the eye, different sets of neurons in the brain process it as separate features like edges and colors. Then the brain must coordinate activity across sets of neurons to assemble these features into recognizable objects like chairs, faces, letters or words. Reading at our normal pace, the brain has only about 250 milliseconds to do this work until the eyes automatically move onto the next letter or word. Once they do so, we're taking in more information from whatever the eyes focus on next. If we haven't yet processed the prior set of information, we can't understand it.
Visual processing time is challenged and slowed by noisy images, low contrast or closely spaced information (like small fonts). There is a bottleneck in the brain as it attempts to build and then comprehend the image. Therefore, enhancing and speeding up the ability to process image components - through perceptual learning - improves a wide range of vision functions.
What's surprising is that this is possible in adult brains. Neuroplasticity - the ability of the brain's processing functions to change to acquire new skills - is most strongly associated with childhood. It's still more pronounced in children than adults, but for some skills, including vision, the brain is more malleable than once thought.
The training with GlassesOff is long and challenging. I found it fun initially, perhaps because it was new. But weeks into it, I began to dread the monotonous labor. Yet, after a couple of months, the app reports I can read fonts nearly one third the size I could when I started and much more rapidly. According to feedback from GlassesOff, my vision after training is equivalent to a man about 10 years younger than my age. If I reach 50 - the age at which almost everyone needs corrective lenses to read - and still don't need reading glasses, I may conclude that the training has paid off.
As apps go, GlassesOff is not cheap. I paid $24.99 for three months of use - long enough to get me through the initial program. Upon completion, I was invited to pay another $59.99 per year for maintenance training. It's a nice option, but the hard work and price probably mean that the bifocals market will remain strong.
