Who can benefit from RightEye?

Every day you blink about 15,000 times. The rest of the time, unless you’re sleeping (or, maybe
meditating), your eyes are gathering information thru 3 types of eye movements: fixations –
steady gaze on a stationary target; pursuits – tracking a moving target; and saccades – rapidly
shifting your eyes from one position to another.

These movements are critical whether reading, driving, checking your phone, or doing anything
else thru the day. If your eyes are not working efficiently, you can’t respond efficiently to your
environment.

Some people have difficulty with one type in particular, and others with all three. Different brain
areas and pathways control each movement, so things can get complex, especially when fatigue,
overload, competing environmental demands, etc…also come into play. Lots of things affect
attention and performance, but eye movement control and coordination are key when it comes to
gathering information. As they say – GIGO – garbage in, garbage out.

Let’s look at a task easily taken for granted visually - preparing breakfast. Beginning with the
walk downstairs, careful attention and fixation must be directed to the steps and then shifted
(saccade) to the level floor to be sure all are free of obstacles and that foot placement is correct.
In the kitchen, eyes jump and fixate on the light switch, then the refrigerator door. Once open,
the eyes scan to find the eggs and then the milk from among the half and half, apple juice,
almond milk and half-empty wine bottle. Working efficiently, the eyes point and the hands
reach in unison and the milk carton is extracted without incident. Removing two eggs from the
container and placing them on the counter, a scuffling sound reflexively draws your attention and
you saccade across the room to see little kitty playing with a “friend”. Back on the counter, you
notice an egg has begun to roll, headed for the edge, so you gently pick it up and place it in a
small bowl. Glancing back to kitty, your eyes track her and confirm she is proceeding to her exit
door with friend in tow.

Due to the automaticity and typical efficiency of eye movements, all this occurred without
thought or maladventure. If eye movement control were dysfunctional, however, there might be
juice on the floor, a cracked egg where it shouldn’t be, and a chipmunk in the pantry. Many
activities require even more precise oculo-motor control, with minor disruptions interfering with
successful performance.

The child habitually bumping into a wall; extra effort needed to scan for cars, bikes and
pedestrians at an intersection; confusion when sorting through a long list of emails. Does eye
movement control, or lack of control, play a role? And how can we know? Now, we can
objectively measure eye movements, and compare them with those of other individuals, and
versus yourself at different points in time. Now, we can tell when inefficient eye movements are
impacting behavior. It’s called RightEye.