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Dyop® - Dynamic Optotype™

Helping the world see clearly, one person at a time.

 

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Introducing the Dyop®

The “Revolutionary” Method for Measuring Visual Clarity (Acuity)

 

 

 

A Dyop® (pronounced “di-op”) is a calibrated segmented spinning ring visual target (optotype) which helps doctors (and you) test how clear your vision is.  A Dyop provides a strobic stimulus to the photoreceptors in the center rear area (called the fovea) of your eye’s retina.  A Dyop test is better than previous vision test methods using letters (the Snellen “Big E” test) or static shapes because it is based on how your eyes actually work, rather than how well you recognize culturally-dependent letters influenced by where you're from or how much you've practiced.  Using a Dyop makes vision tests simpler, more precise, and more consistent.

 

Vision is a dynamic process inherent in all animals.  The world we see is dynamic, NOT static.  Our eyes function as biological machines to enable us to detect motion, distance, and colors so that we can detect predators and game and eat rather than be eaten.

 

The eye functions much like the pixels of light you are likely seeing as you are reading these words.  Those visual pixels are composed of the Red, Green, and Blue light-receptive cone-shaped photoreceptors in the central rear area of your retina called the fovea.  The color stimulus of those cone-photoreceptors, and their proximity to each other, creates the panoply of colors that are registered as images in your brain.  Because vision is an automatic process, our brain learns to be oblivious to the stimulus of those individual pixels of light.

 

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The Components of the Eye

 

Chromatic Triangulation

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The Ciliary Body controls the shape of the lens so that it flattens when seeing distance images and thickens when needing to focus on near images.

The Optic nerve fiber combines the photoreceptor color stimulus to create the signals sent to the brain via the Optic Nerve and to the Ciliary Body to regulate the shape of the lens and visual focus.

Diagram of the Retina

Light passes through the Neuroganglia layer to the color sensitive Photoreceptors in the rear of the eye which in turn stimulates the cells of the neuroganglia layer.

 

Basic Online Dyop Acuity Test

https://www.dyop.net/documents/Dyop_acuity_screening.gif

 

Basic Online Dyop Color Screening Test

Basic Dyop Blue Green Visual Screening Test

 

Smartphone Online Dyop Color Screening Test

Smartphone Dyop Blue Green Visual Screening Test

 

Dyop Presentation 2024

https://www.dyop.net/documents/Dyop-Presentation_2024.mp4

 

 

Click here for the “How We See White Paper and Dyop research articles.

 

Click here for “A History_of_Visual_Testing_and_Optotypes

and why even Snellen thought there were flaws in his Optotypes.

 

 

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How Acuity Works

 

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The properties of visual clarity (acuity) are the SIZE of the image being observed, the VIEWING DISTANCE to that image, and the ability of the visual system to PROCESS THAT IMAGE as clearly as possible (Resolution Acuity).  For vision to be effective and efficient that perception also needs to be autonomic, so that we are totally unaware of the process, otherwise you would be seeing the Red, Green, and Blue pixels on your screen instead of the white background and the black areas where the pixels are NOT emitting light.

 

The current global “standard” for measuring vision was developed in 1862 by Dutch Ophthalmologist Herman Snellen, based upon Recognition Acuity, and the cultural ability of Europeans to detect the size and differences between static letters such as “E” and “C.”  However, vision is actually a RESOLUTION Acuity process.  HOWEVER, vision only becomes RECOGNITION Acuity as we learn to interpret visual stimuli.  Treating vision as a RECOGNITION process (using Snellen letters) may be “convenient” but it inherently misses the functionality and underlying processes of vision.

 

Classical (“Big E”) static letter-based Snellen vision tests also use a theoretical (and assumed) stimulus height (the Minimum ARC of “Resolution”) of 1.0 arc minutes high which is mistakenly followed by the Eye Care Profession, ignoring the fact that that letters have a stimulus-based AREA rather than just a Height.  The eye sees images on a two-dimensional basis, rather than one dimensional.  The conceptual mistake made by Snellen was that he assumed that the Minium AREA of Resolution was actually 1.0 arc minutes squared.  That letter-based Snellen stimulus of 1.0 arc minutes squared area is larger than the empirically derived Dyop 0.54 arc minutes squared actual Minimum AREA of Resolution.  That Dyop stimulus AREA corresponds to a cluster of about 20 cone-photoreceptors.   The Snellen static MAR correlates to a cluster of about 40 photoreceptors, which contributes to it being inherently imprecise.

 

Because vision is a dynamic process, using Recognition Acuity and static targets to measure vision, also depletes the response of the photoreceptors, and tends to produce an overminused (excess spherical power) refraction.  See the comments and research articles about the Global Epidemic of Myopia (below).

 

Even Snellen had significant reservations about the acuity test he developed for the benefit of the Eye Care Profession.  A_History_of_Visual_Testing_and_Optotypes

 

Using a Dyop allows us to determine that the measured Snellen stimulus AREA is too large, resulting in the 1862 Snellen “standard of vision testing” being inherently inaccurate, inconsistent (because the stimulus letters are NOT consistent), and inefficient (because of the extra time to recognize and identify the Snellen visual stimulus).  Snellen testing inherently mistakes cognition for acuity.  The improperly and imprecisely “measures” vision, is culturally biased, and is dependent upon the subject having letter-based literacy.  Cognition of European-type letters-based letters becomes a guessing game for both the doctor and patient and measures conceptual processing by the patient as much as it does visual clarity.  The Snellen excess area stimulus gap creates a logarithmic pattern where increases in the height of the letter doubles with increases of diopters of visual blur.  That logarithmic increase (aka, LogMAR) is as much a measure of the inherent error of Snellen testing as it is of acuity.

 

The other delusion of Snellen is that we DO NOT see black as a stimulus color.  Snellen assumed that static letters such as “E” and “C,” could use the detection of the size and differences between those letters and accurately measure acuity and refractions.  Letter-based vision tests use an assumed stimulus gap area (the Minimum AREA of Resolution - MAR) of 1.0 arc minutes squared.  That Snellen letter-based 1.0 arc minutes squared stimulus AREA is almost twice the size of the empirically derived 0.54 arc minutes squared Dyop Minimum AREA of Resolution based on the actual physiological response of the eye.  With “Big E” letters what we really “see” (as a stimulus) are the white gaps around the letters so that the Snellen estimated stimulus AREAS are actually twice the size of the empirically Dyop Minimal AREA of Resolution stimulus and inherently imprecise.

 

Snellen created the term “optotype” to describe a visual target for use in measuring acuity because new technology requires new terminology.  As a homage to Snellen, I am describing the “20 cone-photoreceptor cluster” of the Dyop Minimum AREA of Resolution as a “Bailey Cluster.  It is a homage to Dr. Ian Bailey who created the LogMAR concept to explain away the abnormal logarithmic, doubling increase in the Snellen optotype height due to the bloated estimated minimum stimulus AREA.  Similarly, I am calling the optimum 10% stroke width and 40 rpm rotation rate a “Colenbrander Dyop.”  It was THE Dr. August Colenbrander who suggested adjusting the Dyop stroke width and rotation rate to determine the results of those effects by calling.”  Dr. Colenbrander also supervised the 1984 meeting which established the Snellen test as the “global standard” for vision.

https://www.dyop.net/documents/1984VisualAcuityStandards-highlighted.pdf

From that 1984 document are the words, “XIV.1 A standard is meant to be a stable entity, yet all points are not established by experimental certainty, deficiencies are periodically revealed and need correction, new developments in tests are occurring, etc.  Thus, a standard may be an evolving document and needs to be re-viewed periodically and should not be regarded as immutable.”

 

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How a Dyop® Works

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As a spinning Dyop® ring gets smaller, the (equally sized) gaps and segments become so small that it becomes impossible for the eye to detect the direction of the Dyop ring rotation.  The Dyop acuity endpoint is the smallest Dyop diameter where the rotation direction of the spinning ring can still be detected.  It serves as a precise indicator of visual clarity and vision correction.  The gap area for 20/20 (6/6) acuity of the smallest Dyop where spinning by the Dyop ring can be detected has a Minimum AREA of Resolution stimulus gap of 0.54 arc minutes squared with a ring a diameter of 7.6 arc minutes.  Dyop sub-acuity is the Dyop diameter where the gaps are too small to detect the Dyop ring rotation.

 

Components of a Dyop

 

 

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Dyop Components

Item 1 – the Dynamic Visual Acuity angular movement/velocity for the strobic contrast response (40 RPM optimum) with a 0.33 arc minute squared per second Resonance Acuity refresh rate.

Item 2 – the moving segmented 0.54 arc minute squared Minimum Area of Resolution (MAR) for dynamically stimulating a 20-photoreceptor cluster for Dynamic Visual Acuity

Item 3 – retinal photoreceptor cell clusters

Item 4 – examples of historic Static Visual Acuity optotypes (Recognition Acuity or Resolution Acuity).

Item 5 – the static 1.0 arc minute squared Minimum Area (MAR) of a 40-retina photoreceptor cluster for a historic Static Visual Acuity optotype

 

 

The use of a Black/White-on-Gray Dyop for Resolution Acuity is comparable to the current Snellen Black/White Recognition Acuity “global vision standard” (the “Big E”) using letter.  The strobic stimulus of the spinning Black/White-on-Gray Dyop gaps/segments functions as a (binary) on/off switch to stimulate those cone-photoreceptors.  A Dyop provides a pixelized strobic photoreceptor response to create the images you are seeing using Resolution Acuity in response to the photoreceptor’s refresh movements.  The Dyop acuity endpoint is the smallest diameter (in arc minutes) where the direction of spinning can be detected.  Measuring the Dyop diameter in arc minutes eliminates the cultural bias of using Feet/Meters, insures that the Dyop diameter is collaborated with the viewing distance, and creates a precise, accurate, and efficient method of measuring visual acuity.  When the stimulus of the Dyop gap/segment AREA becomes too small, it becomes a sub-acuity Dyop where the gap area is too small to stimulate a sufficient number of fovea photoreceptors to enable rotation detection of the spinning Dyop.  That precise acuity endpoint also creates optimum values for sphere, cylinder, and axis and aids in avoiding an overminused refraction.

 

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20/22

 

20/20

 

20/18

1862 Snellen Vision Testing

21st Century Dyop® Vision Testing

 

Static letter-based acuity tests are inherently imprecise because they mistake the process of cognition for physiological resolution processes, use an imprecise multiplicity of inconsistent letters, and have an overly large stimulus area to benchmark vision rather than the empirically determined smaller Dyop stimulus size.  Because vision is actually a dynamic Resolution Acuity process, using Recognition Acuity with static targets to measure vision, also depletes the response of the photoreceptors, and tends to consistently produce an overminused (excess spherical power) refraction.  That overminus leads to angular elongation of the eye, increased myopia, and may indicate that Snellen testing is a significant contributor to the Global Epidemic of Myopia.

 

https://www.dyop.net/documents/Snellen_vs_Dyop_Refractions-Sanni.pdf


https://www.dyop.net/documents/Snellen_vs_Dyop-Cataracts_Gordon.pdf

https://www.dyop.net/documents/JCOVS-21-Gordon_refraction_comparison.pdf

https://www.dyop.net/documents/Guy_Barnett-Itzhaki_The_Dynamic_Optotype.pdf

 

 

That increased precision of the Dyop gap stimulus area (0.54 arc min squared) also results in Dyop acuity having a LINEAR increase in diameter versus diopters of blur rather than the bloated stimulus area (1.0 arc min squared) of Snellen testing which has a LOGARITHMIC increase in letter height with diopters of blur.  The excess (2x) area of the Snellen stimulus gap creates a logarithmic pattern where increases in the size of the letter doubles with increases of diopters of visual blur.  That logarithmic increase (aka, LogMAR) is as much a measure of the error inherent in Snellen testing as it is of “acuity.”

 

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The result of using Dyop Resolution Acuity is that Dyop testing is up to six times more precise than 1862 Snellen letter-based testing (which uses the culturally dependent Recognition Acuity of static letters or symbols), is up to eight times more consistent, and is up to three times more efficient.   A Dyop can also measure acuity regardless of the subjects’ literacy skills or culture, easily enables testing of children or infants, and enables measurement of acuity in color for potential diagnostic and/or therapeutic use.

 

 

The result of using Dyop Resolution Acuity is that a Dyop is up to six times more precise than 1862 Snellen letter-based testing (which uses the culturally dependent Recognition Acuity of static letters or symbols), is up to eight times more consistent, and is up to three times more efficient.   A Dyop also can measure acuity regardless of the subjects’ literacy skills or culture, easily enables testing of children or infants, and enables measurement of acuity in color for potential diagnostic and/or therapeutic use.

 

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What Regulates Acuity

 

As you are seeing the images on your computer monitor, tablet, or Smartphone, or reading the words, you think that you are seeing lines, shapes, letters, and/or words.  What you are actually seeing are pixels of light moving rapidly across the surface of your computer screen, tablet, or Smartphone in combinations of the colors of RedGreen, and Blue because those are the primary colors that the foveal photoreceptors perceive.  Those pixels of electronic light are perceived by the color-sensitive cone photoreceptors in the back of your retina (called the fovea) giving you the perception of vision.  The dynamic motion of those pixels keeps the image from burning itself into the screen of the monitor.  The automatic refresh rate of those photoreceptors (with an optimum of 0.33 arc min squared per second) keeps the image from burning out your photoreceptor perception and helps to keep the image dynamic.  The Dyop strobic gap stimulus also keeps those pixel images in your screen from depleting the refresh response of the photoreceptors and thus better enables their functioning as a biological switch sending a stimulus to the neuroganglia.

 

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Chromatic Triangulation

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Wavelengths of light

 

The mechanics of vision is that when you look at an object, the biological lens in the front of the eye changes its shape to focus that image (in a process called accommodation) on the back center (fovea) area of the retina.  For viewing distance images, the lens is thin.  For viewing near images, the lens becomes rounded to bend the light.  That accommodation process of the lens in changing its shape keeps Visual Acuity dynamic when you look at letters, words, lines, or shapes due to the refresh rate of the photoreceptors.  That refresh rate of the photoreceptors is about 0.33 arc minutes squared per second (akin to the shutter speed of a camera) provides the eye with a dynamic response to the RedGreen, and Blue colors to give the perception of vision.

 

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However, the colors RedGreen, and Blue each have a disparate and distinctive focal depth where Red is focused BEHIND the retina, Green is focused ON the retina, and Blue is focused in FRONT of the retina.  Those focal depths provide Chromatic Triangulation to regulate the shape of the lens of the eye and the resulting focal depth of the image being viewed.  It also enables being able to determine the relative viewing distance to an object using just one eye.  Rather than accommodation being regulated by the brain, accommodation is the learned response as to the comparative focal depth for Red and Green.

 

The functionality of Chromatic Triangulation can be validated by closing one eye and looking at two objects which are almost at the same distance from you.  If visual acuity was cerebral (regulated by the brain rather than by Chromatic Triangulation}, you would see those objects as 2-dimensional images and with almost no depth perception, necessitating binocular vision to have that depth perception.  Instead, regardless of which eye is closed, you almost always can tell which object is closest.

 

 

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HOW YOU SEE is primarily affected by the ratio of the Red vs. Green color-sensitive photoreceptors in the fovea of your eye, and Acuity is NOT regulated by the brain but rather by the interaction of the retina and the biological lens.

 

The eye evolved about 300,000 years ago primarily with a higher ratio of Red/Green photoreceptors (75% Red and 20% Green) which provides a more Stable Distance Image enabling humans to be a more successful PREDATOR.  That evolutionary advantage of a more Stable Distance Image facilitates humans being better able to spot other predators and game so that humans could eat rather than be eaten.

As farming became a technical skill that reduced the need to migrate to find food, the preferred near visual skills enabled the evolution of a more balanced Red vs. Green ratio of photoreceptors (50% Red and 45% Green) to provide a more Stable Near Image.  That Stable Near Image eventually facilitated the use of pictographic symbols and the development of letter-based words and cultures that use “Western technology.”

 

That remnant of the higher red ratio (75% Red and 20% Green) and a Stable Distance Image is associated with cultures and gene-pools which use pictographic writing.  Unfortunately, that Unstable Near Image and Near Vision Stress is also associated with symptoms of dyslexia, migraines, and epilepsy.

 

Response to colors by the biological lens

Chromatic Triangulation has Green Focused ON the retina.

 

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Over-Compensation has Green IN FRONT OF the retina.

Stable Near Image = 50% Red, 45% Green, 5% Blue

Balanced-Red-Ratio Vision vs.

High-Red-Ratio Vision

Over-Compensation has Green FRONT the retina.

Near Vision Stress = 75% Red, 20% Green, 5% Blue

 

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Disparate color perception also allows the photoreceptors to use the constantly changing Chromatic Triangulation of the RedGreen, and Blue focal depths to regulate acuity.  The deceptive factor of Black/White acuity measurement is that it masks the mechanics of accommodation regulation and enables the “pious fraud” of the Eye Care Profession that acuity is “regulated by the brain.”

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Light reaching the Photoreceptors

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Photoreceptors as Pixels

 

Much as twenty-first century digital cameras use computerized electronic pixels to respond to colors and intensity to create the images we see, the eye functions as a pixelized receptor of retina stimuli to create vision and bring that image into focus.  The eye has about 100 photoreceptors merged into every optic nerve going to the brain, however the Minimum AREA of Resolution as empirically determined by a Dyop is 0.54 arcminutes squared which is about the stimulus area of twenty fovea photoreceptors.

 

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In his 2011 Proctor Lecture presentation Dr. Richard Masland described retina functioning as being similar to a "biological computer" with the photoreceptors functioning much as binary switches to create permutations of color perception sent to the brain by the Optic Nerve Fibers and to the Ciliary Body surrounding the lens to modulate the shape of the lens.

Cell Populations of the Retina

Cell Populations of the Retina

 

Retinal_cells - Masland_Procter Lecture.pdf

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Types of neuroganglia cells

 

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Chromatic Triangulation

The Ciliary Body controls the shape of the lens based on the focal depth of colors perceived by the color sensitive cone-photoreceptors.

Neuroganglia layer combines photoreceptor color perception to create the signals sent to the brain by Optic Nerve Fibers as an image and to the Ciliary Body to regulate acuity.

Diagram of the Retina

Light goes through the neuroganglia layer and stimulates the cone-photoreceptors at the fovea area of the retina.

 

A simple illustration of vision functioning as a dynamic process and photoreceptor depletion is The Lilac Chaser Illusion (see below) When you fixate on the Plus (+) in the center of the ring of Pink circles below, you likely see the Pink circles seeming to rotate around that Plus.  But it is also likely that you will see a single moving Green circle which appears to spin around the Plus.  The illusion of the Green circle appearing is because of the depletion of the Red photoreceptor refresh resulting in the inability to “see” the color Red and creating the illusion (delusion) that the depleted photoreceptor area is seeing a Green circle.  The Chromostereopsis rings (below) make the contrasting blue ring appear to move away from you or towards you as a function of cone-photoreceptor depletion depending on how long you look at it.  The other two illusions (on the sides) illustrate the creation of cognition (Open Your Eyes) even if it isn’t there, and the refresh effect of photoreceptor depletion to create an illusion of motion (Moving Dimple Pattern) even when it isn’t there.

 

Typical Visual Illusions

 

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The Lilac Chaser Illusion

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Open Your Eyes

The Lilac Chaser Illusion

Chromostereopsis Movement

Moving Dimple Pattern

 

 

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Quantifying the Photoreceptor Refresh Rate

(and the Colenbrander optimum Dyop)

 

The Dynamics of Visual Acuity is provided by the refresh rate of the cone-photoreceptors located in the back of the retina.  (The following research was suggested by THE Dr. August Colenbrander who suggested adjusting the Dyop stroke width and rotation rate to determine the effects of those changes.  That is why I am calling that optimum 10% stroke width and 40 rpm rotation rate a “Colenbrander Dyop.”)  The optimum 20/20 (6/6) acuity, using 8 uniformly spaced gaps and 8 contrasting segments, has a 10% stroke width and 40 RPM rotation rate in maximizing the Dyop precision and accuracy.  Deviation from that optimum 10% stroke width and 40 rpm rotation rate required the Dyop diameter to increase in size in order to be sufficient to detect the rotational motion.

 

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That photoreceptor refresh allows the neurons on the inner surface of the retina to act as the equivalent of a biological circuit board.  That “optimum Dyop” with a 10% stroke width and a 40 RPM rotation rate creates a 0.54 arc minutes squared stimulus area (Minimum Area of Resolution – MAR) and a 0.33 arc minute square per second refresh rate for the color-receptive cone-photoreceptors.

 

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It also allows the concept of the “optimum Dyop” to avoid the “curse of Snellen refractions” of making it easy to over-minus or under-minus a refraction.  As the Sphere, Cylinder, and Axis values are changed, the corresponding minimal Dyop diameter detected as spinning changes.  However, as the corresponding Dyop diameter moves towards the optimum diopter or axis value the Dyop diameter decreases until it reaches that optimum minimum.  As it goes past the optimum diopter or axis value, the minimum diameter increases, thus precisely and efficiently defining the optimum value as the acuity endpoint for Sphere, Cylinder, and Axis.

 

That smallest Dyop gap/segment stimulus area detected spinning is the minimum visual stimulus threshold area (Minimum AREA of Resolution – MAR  of 0.54 arc minutes squared) correlates to about 20 photoreceptors.  That threshold is significantly more precise, consistent, and efficient than staring at letters since below that stimulus diameter you have a sub-acuity Dyop where spinning cannot be detected.  The actual direction of Dyop spinning is irrelevant.  The detection of spinning also lets the Dyop test be used for individuals who “can’t read,” infants and young children, and individuals with letter-processing problems such as dyslexia.

 

The following is a “proof of concept” test for use of measuring infant acuity.

https://www.dyop.net/documents/Dyop_Infant_Acuity_Measurement_Poster.pdf

 

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Why We See in Color

 

Until now, how we see, and how our eyes adjust its visual focus, has remained a mystery.  Much like the inherent LACK of precision, the delusion (or “pious fraud”) of the Eye Care Profession is that visual acuity is “regulated by the brain.”

 

Your eyes function similar to the pixels receptors of a computerized video camera.  The eye’s photoreceptors not only allow you to see in color (primarily RedGreen, and Blue), but the refresh rate of the photoreceptors, and the matrix stimulus of the inner layer of neuroganglia by the photoreceptors, allows you to track changes in the location of those images.   However, the neuroganglia layer of the retina “process” those photoreceptor responses in clusters of about 20 photoreceptors much as a biological circuit board with the emphasis on patterns of motion and proximity.  The response of about 100 photoreceptors, as combined by the neuroganglia, create the stimulus for each optic nerve fiber going to the brain which, in turn, creates vision and brings that image into focus.  The comparative focal depth of the RedGreen, and Blue colors of the images also regulates the shape of the biological lens and adjusts focal clarity in a process we call Chromatic Triangulation.

 

The strobic stimulus of the spinning Black/White-on-Gray Dyop gap/segments functions as a (binary) on/off switch to stimulate the photoreceptors.  As the stimulus area of the Dyop gap/segment AREA becomes too small, that stimulus area becomes smaller than the minimum AREA of photoreceptor visual resolution.  The angular arc width of the smallest diameter Dyop ring detected as spinning creates an acuity endpoint to provide a precise, accurate, and efficient method of measuring visual acuity.  That precise acuity endpoint also creates optimum values for sphere, cylinder, and axis (the above “Colenbrander Optimum Dyop”) and aids in avoiding an overminused refraction.

 

The retinal pixel process is similar to the display of a television or your computer.  Detecting the spinning gaps/segments is similar to detecting the electronic pixels.  Computer pixels, like cone-photoreceptors, are so small that, unless you are close enough, you only see lines or shapes and NOT the pixels.

 

As the spinning gap/segment area of a Dyop gets too small due to the angular width of the ring getting smaller, that gap/segment photoreceptor stimulus area becomes too small for the photoreceptor clusters to detect that motion.  That smallest Dyop stimulus area detected as spinning creates a visual clarity threshold (acuity endpoint) and is a cluster area of about 20 photoreceptors.  That Dyop acuity and refraction endpoint is also significantly more precise than staring at letters inherent in the Snellen test because it is functionally about half the area (0.54 arc minutes squared) than the 1.0 arc minute squared average Snellen stimulus area.  The ability to detect motion is also a survival tool as critical as detecting the size of the image itself.

 

 

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Black/White

Red

Green

Blue

 

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Blue

Black/White

Green

 

Color Acuity can also be used for diagnostic tests.

 Basic Dyop Blue Green Visual Screening Test

 

Certain Dyop color/contrast combinations can also be used to screen for potential symptoms of dyslexia, migraines, and epilepsy.   Rather than accommodation being regulated by the length of the eye, the adjustment as to accommodation is the learned response as to the comparative focal depth for Red and Green.  The deceptive factor of Black/White acuity measurement is that it masks the mechanics of accommodation regulation.

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Brief History of Historic Vision Measurement

 

Thousands of years ago, visual clarity (acuity) was defined by the ability to see the nighttime gap between two of the smaller stars in the handle of the Big Dipper constellation.

 

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Static Resolution Acuity

Static Recognition Acuity

Dynamic Dyop Resolution Acuity

 

In 1862 Dutch Ophthalmologist Herman Snellen used the ability to identify (European) letters as the benchmark for visual acuity.  Reading had become a dominant economic and social skill in Europe.  Snellen used the convenience of black letters on a white background as the benchmark although most of what we see is NOT in black and white and other cultures use pictographs rather than letter-based words.

 

While twenty first century technology is letter-based technology, today’s visual acuity is primarily measured by the clarity and ability to read text on an electronic display.  Unfortunately, vision science has not kept up with the precision and demands of those 21st century visual needs.  The use of Dynamic Visual Acuity to provide increased precision, increased consistency, and increased efficiency of the Dyop® tests are intended as a global replacement for Static Visual Acuity letter-based tests such as Snellen, Sloan, and Landolt optotypes, and provide a more universal and efficient method of vision measurement.

 

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Origin of the Dyop® Concept

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http://www.dyop.net/documents/Origin_of_Dyops.pdf

 

 

A “Perfect Storm of repeated mis-prescriptions” led to the Dyop Tests


The dynamic optotype, or Dyop®, discovery grew out of an inappropriate refraction.  The Dyop concept was developed as an attempt to explain four years of unintentional refractive overminus (excess spherical power), and the resulting negative visual, financial, and psychological effects from that overminus.  What was discovered was a visual acuity and refraction test which was significantly more precise and efficient that Snellen/Sloan/Landolt testing, and that there was an inherent tendency of static Snellen/Sloan/Landolt tests to create an overminused refraction.  This possible explanation of visual accommodation is an outgrowth of trying to explain how and why the dynamic optotype, or Dyop, test works.

 

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Allan's Productivity - 1988 to 2008

This Dyop "personal research history" is anecdotal.  However, all of the discoveries and research have been peer-review validated by academically trained optometry professors.  Their research was also provided at NO charge due to their scientific curiosity and the potential of improving visual processes.  The goal of the anecdotal research has been having those discoveries reproducible and simple enough so that they could be peer-review validated.  The nature of the discoveries and the scientific validation has been stunning and delightful.

 

The observations which followed over the next ten years are from discovering how and why that consistent Snellen-generated overminus occurred.

 

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It is easy to detect an image which needs a more spherical lens power because it will appear blurry.  It is more difficult to detect an image which has too much spherical power because the image will appear to be hyper-crisp.  The advantage of a Dyop test versus static images is that the Dyop arc width diameter will reach a minimum when the combination of the optimum sphere, cylinder, and axis is achieved.

 

The inherent tendency to fixate on static images during vision testing tends to result in a measurement with excess visual sphere.  Eyeglass and contact wearers tend to NOT be aware of their overminus.

The "optimum" Dyop rotation rate seems to be a 7.6 arc minute and the "optimum" stroke width seems to be 40 rpm for a Dyop 20/20 acuity endpoint.  The "optimum" Dyop stimulus area equivalent to a Snellen 20/20, or Metric 6/6, acuity and refraction endpoint is 0.54 arc minutes squared, or the equivalent of about 20 photoreceptors.

 

That "optimum" 0.54 arc minute squared stimulus area at a 40-rpm rotation speed creates a photoreceptor refresh rate (much like the shutter speed of a camera) of 0.33 arc minutes squared per second.

 

 

Dyop vs. Snellen Comparison

 

A comparison of the Dyop test vs. the Snellen/Sloan/Landolt tests leads to the following conclusions as to the flaws inherent in Snellen-type letter-based vision testing.

​​1.  The stimulus seen by the color-perceptive cone photoreceptors in the retina foveal area is a two-dimensional AREA rather than a one-dimensional value of height as defined by Snellen.
2.  Letter-based optotypes, such as Snellen, are inherently inconsistent and irregular due to the inconsistency of their visual stimulus AREAS (which are the irregular White gaps surrounding the letters since we don’t see Black).

3.  Dyop acuity and refraction measurement is based on the more precise RESOLUTION Acuity of the eye rather than the culturally dependent and subjective RECOGNITION Acuity as interpreted by the eye care examiner.

4. The (empirically determined) optimum Dyop stimulus AREA is 0.54 arc minutes squared.  The assumed Snellen/Sloan/Landolt tests have a theoretical stimulus AREA of 1.0 arc minute squared, which is almost two-fold excess size of the Snellen stimulus AREA.  That bloated assumed stimulus AREA is the reason for static-letter-based tests having a logarithmic increase in size or viewing distance with a linear increase in diopters of blur whereas the (empirically determined) Dyop stimulus AREA has a linear diameter increase with a linear increase in blur and/or viewing distance.

5.  Acuity and cognition are separate components of vision.  The physiological Resolution Acuity response to the Dyop test eliminates the Recognition Acuity cultural bias of European letters as well as increases the consistency and universality of the Dyop response.  Dyop acuity and refraction testing is up to six times more precise than Snellen testing, up to eight times more consistent, and up to three times more efficient.  Dyop testing can also be used in non-literate individuals, children, and infants, and can be used to measure acuity in color for diagnostic and potential therapeutic purposes.

6.  Motion detection is an inherent facet of acuity.  Motion detection can be used in infants and non-literate adults to determine the acuity endpoint as the smallest stimulus where that motion is still detected.  The actual 0.54 arc minute squared MAR stimulates only about 20 photoreceptors, so that about five clusters of Dyop stimulus (100 photoreceptors) result in the stimulus generated for the response of each optic nerve fiber.

7. “Identically sized” (height) letter-based static optotypes do not have an identical visual response due to their irregularity.  Individuals habituated to the hyper-crispness of electronic images, due to the Stiles-Crawford effect, tend to respond differently to fuzzy optotypes in wanting to maximize the black/white contrast by having the examiner increase the visual power.  That “excess minus power” is likely a factor in the 21st century Global Epidemic of Myopia.

8.  The response of the cone-photoreceptors is a transient bioelectrical stimulus from specific wavelengths of light.  As a result, static optotype image fixation depletes the normal photoreceptor refresh rate (calculated to be 0.33 arc minutes squared per second) leading to visual stress, reduced acuity, and an overminused refraction.

9.  Accommodation is a learned response based on the focal depths of RedGreen, and Blue in relation to the retina, rather than a cerebral process.  The regulation of acuity (accommodation) is reflected in the variances in Dyop color acuity which validates that is a color perception function, which we define as Chromatic Triangulation.

10.  Not all trichromats have the same ratio of Red/Green photoreceptors.  Variations in trichromat response are associated with chromatin-associated maladies such as dyslexia, migraines, and epilepsy (primarily a 75% Red and 20% Green ratio versus a less stressed Red/Green ratio (50% Red and 45% Green).

11.  Variances in color acuity are genetic in origin and have a cultural/psychological effect on an individual.  The predatory advantage of a Stable Distance Image, for individuals with high-red photoreceptor ratios, contributes to Near Vision Stress and individuals with a tendency for chromatic stress related maladies such as dyslexia and migraines, a psychological preference toward a more structured (authoritarian) environment, and visual compensation with excess confidence resulting in the Dunning-Krueger Effect.

 

An ADDED problem of NOT having Optimum Acuity/Refraction is that it impairs cognition as well as vision.

https://www.dyop.net/dyslexia-default.htm

 

We are NO LONGER in the Age of Information or the Age of Information Overload.

We are now in the Age of Comprehension.

 

Since using the Snellen test consistency increases the myopic power of a refraction, that myopic increase also contributes to the increase in global myopia and a loss of cognition.  The scientific and commercialization benefits of the Dyop concept are due to its increased precision, consistency, efficiency, and broader range of vision test attributes, and universal patient acceptance versus "conventional" (1862) static-letter-visual testing.

 

 

 “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
- Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law

 

“Technology is our word for stuff we don’t understand.”

Douglas Adams

Technology is the use of increasingly accurate, self-evident, and reproducible information to replace time, energy, and matter.

The benefit of technology is NOT in what it lets people accomplish, but in how it improves the character of people.

Allan Hytowitz

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The Dyop® (Dynamic Optotype™) tests and concept are covered under U.S. Patent US 8,083,353

and International Published Patent WO 2011/022428.

kFor further information contact: Allan Hytowitz at Allan@DyopVision.com

5035 Morton Ferry Circle, Johns Creek, GA, 30022   /   404-281-7798

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