How Eye Tracking Enhances Vision Testing in Elite Para Athletes
Research Digest
November 19, 2025
Figure: Participant wearing Pupil Invisible eye tracking glasses while performing a computer-based visual search task. Source: https://vu.nl/en/news/2025/how-eye-tracking-makes-paralympic-sport-fairer
Figure: Participant wearing Pupil Invisible eye tracking glasses while performing a computer-based visual search task. Source: https://vu.nl/en/news/2025/how-eye-tracking-makes-paralympic-sport-fairer
Figure: Participant wearing Pupil Invisible eye tracking glasses while performing a computer-based visual search task. Source: https://vu.nl/en/news/2025/how-eye-tracking-makes-paralympic-sport-fairer
Seeing Beyond Standard Tests
Traditional vision assessments, such as visual acuity and visual field measurements, are foundational to clinical practice. However, these static, isolated tests often fail to capture how vision functions in real-world, dynamic environments. This limitation is particularly evident in elite Para athletes with vision impairment (VI), where predicting sport performance based solely on standard visual metrics has proven inadequate, highlighting the need for more nuanced, functionally relevant assessments.
Eye Tracking as a Window into Functional Vision
To address this gap, Ward Nieboer and David L. Mann at the Institute for research on Brain, Body and Behaviour (iBBA) of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam developed an innovative eye tracking test battery designed to objectively capture functional visual performance in individuals with VI.
The test battery employed the Pupil Invisible eye tracking glasses, which use a deep-learning-based gaze estimation that requires no calibration, to record athletes’ eye movements during computer-based visual tasks. This allowed participants with visual impairments to take part without the difficulties often associated with conventional calibration. This setup enabled researchers to capture how vision is actively used, quantifying behaviors such as:
Fixation stability: Ability to hold gaze steadily, reflecting visual control and focus
Smooth pursuit: Accuracy in tracking moving objects, relevant to interceptive sports
Saccades: Speed and precision of rapid eye movements, critical for scanning and reacting
Free viewing: Patterns of spontaneous visual exploration, revealing natural attention strategies
Visual search: Efficiency in locating targets, which can influence performance in dynamic environments
Testing in Elite Para Athletes
The study included 46 international Para athletes across track and swimming, alongside 10 control participants. Athletes presented a range of visual conditions, including Stargardt disease, retinitis pigmentosa, and optic atrophy. The researchers evaluated three key aspects:
Feasibility: 88% of athletes successfully completed the full protocol, highlighting the robustness of the system across diverse VI conditions.
Construct validity: Eye movement data revealed three functional clusters, distinguishing healthy vision, combined central and peripheral loss, and central vision loss. These clusters reflected distinct scanning strategies, fixation patterns, and saccade characteristics.
Predictive validity: Visual acuity alone failed to predict athletic performance. When eye-tracking metrics were incorporated, the model explained 52% of performance variance, with longer fixation durations, intrusive saccades, and extended scan paths emerging as the most informative predictors.
Toward Fairer Para Sports
Accurately measuring functional vision is also critical for fair competition in Paralympic sports. Currently, athletes with visual impairments are classified in different sport classes to minimise the impact of the impairment on the outcome of competition. This classification system is based on traditional eye tests, which may not fully reflect how they see and perform in practice. This can create imbalances in competition.
By quantifying how athletes actively use their vision, Nieboer and Mann showed that eye tracking provides a more precise and functionally relevant assessment of visual ability. These insights could help refine the classification system, ensuring that Para athletes with vision impairment compete on a level playing field.
Functional Vision Matters in Life, Not Just Sport
This study illustrates how eye tracking can quantify functional vision in ways that traditional clinical tests cannot. For Para athletes, it provides an objective, scientifically grounded understanding of how visual impairment interacts with performance, potentially informing tailored training and adaptive strategies.
Moreover, these insights extend beyond sport. Eye tracking can enhance clinical assessment, rehabilitation, and daily task evaluation for individuals with VI, offering a window into how vision is actively used in the real world, rather than only what the eyes can detect under static conditions.
Explore Further
Full article: https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2810796
Research Center: Institute for research on Brain, Body and Behaviour (iBBA), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Seeing Beyond Standard Tests
Traditional vision assessments, such as visual acuity and visual field measurements, are foundational to clinical practice. However, these static, isolated tests often fail to capture how vision functions in real-world, dynamic environments. This limitation is particularly evident in elite Para athletes with vision impairment (VI), where predicting sport performance based solely on standard visual metrics has proven inadequate, highlighting the need for more nuanced, functionally relevant assessments.
Eye Tracking as a Window into Functional Vision
To address this gap, Ward Nieboer and David L. Mann at the Institute for research on Brain, Body and Behaviour (iBBA) of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam developed an innovative eye tracking test battery designed to objectively capture functional visual performance in individuals with VI.
The test battery employed the Pupil Invisible eye tracking glasses, which use a deep-learning-based gaze estimation that requires no calibration, to record athletes’ eye movements during computer-based visual tasks. This allowed participants with visual impairments to take part without the difficulties often associated with conventional calibration. This setup enabled researchers to capture how vision is actively used, quantifying behaviors such as:
Fixation stability: Ability to hold gaze steadily, reflecting visual control and focus
Smooth pursuit: Accuracy in tracking moving objects, relevant to interceptive sports
Saccades: Speed and precision of rapid eye movements, critical for scanning and reacting
Free viewing: Patterns of spontaneous visual exploration, revealing natural attention strategies
Visual search: Efficiency in locating targets, which can influence performance in dynamic environments
Testing in Elite Para Athletes
The study included 46 international Para athletes across track and swimming, alongside 10 control participants. Athletes presented a range of visual conditions, including Stargardt disease, retinitis pigmentosa, and optic atrophy. The researchers evaluated three key aspects:
Feasibility: 88% of athletes successfully completed the full protocol, highlighting the robustness of the system across diverse VI conditions.
Construct validity: Eye movement data revealed three functional clusters, distinguishing healthy vision, combined central and peripheral loss, and central vision loss. These clusters reflected distinct scanning strategies, fixation patterns, and saccade characteristics.
Predictive validity: Visual acuity alone failed to predict athletic performance. When eye-tracking metrics were incorporated, the model explained 52% of performance variance, with longer fixation durations, intrusive saccades, and extended scan paths emerging as the most informative predictors.
Toward Fairer Para Sports
Accurately measuring functional vision is also critical for fair competition in Paralympic sports. Currently, athletes with visual impairments are classified in different sport classes to minimise the impact of the impairment on the outcome of competition. This classification system is based on traditional eye tests, which may not fully reflect how they see and perform in practice. This can create imbalances in competition.
By quantifying how athletes actively use their vision, Nieboer and Mann showed that eye tracking provides a more precise and functionally relevant assessment of visual ability. These insights could help refine the classification system, ensuring that Para athletes with vision impairment compete on a level playing field.
Functional Vision Matters in Life, Not Just Sport
This study illustrates how eye tracking can quantify functional vision in ways that traditional clinical tests cannot. For Para athletes, it provides an objective, scientifically grounded understanding of how visual impairment interacts with performance, potentially informing tailored training and adaptive strategies.
Moreover, these insights extend beyond sport. Eye tracking can enhance clinical assessment, rehabilitation, and daily task evaluation for individuals with VI, offering a window into how vision is actively used in the real world, rather than only what the eyes can detect under static conditions.
Explore Further
Full article: https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2810796
Research Center: Institute for research on Brain, Body and Behaviour (iBBA), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Seeing Beyond Standard Tests
Traditional vision assessments, such as visual acuity and visual field measurements, are foundational to clinical practice. However, these static, isolated tests often fail to capture how vision functions in real-world, dynamic environments. This limitation is particularly evident in elite Para athletes with vision impairment (VI), where predicting sport performance based solely on standard visual metrics has proven inadequate, highlighting the need for more nuanced, functionally relevant assessments.
Eye Tracking as a Window into Functional Vision
To address this gap, Ward Nieboer and David L. Mann at the Institute for research on Brain, Body and Behaviour (iBBA) of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam developed an innovative eye tracking test battery designed to objectively capture functional visual performance in individuals with VI.
The test battery employed the Pupil Invisible eye tracking glasses, which use a deep-learning-based gaze estimation that requires no calibration, to record athletes’ eye movements during computer-based visual tasks. This allowed participants with visual impairments to take part without the difficulties often associated with conventional calibration. This setup enabled researchers to capture how vision is actively used, quantifying behaviors such as:
Fixation stability: Ability to hold gaze steadily, reflecting visual control and focus
Smooth pursuit: Accuracy in tracking moving objects, relevant to interceptive sports
Saccades: Speed and precision of rapid eye movements, critical for scanning and reacting
Free viewing: Patterns of spontaneous visual exploration, revealing natural attention strategies
Visual search: Efficiency in locating targets, which can influence performance in dynamic environments
Testing in Elite Para Athletes
The study included 46 international Para athletes across track and swimming, alongside 10 control participants. Athletes presented a range of visual conditions, including Stargardt disease, retinitis pigmentosa, and optic atrophy. The researchers evaluated three key aspects:
Feasibility: 88% of athletes successfully completed the full protocol, highlighting the robustness of the system across diverse VI conditions.
Construct validity: Eye movement data revealed three functional clusters, distinguishing healthy vision, combined central and peripheral loss, and central vision loss. These clusters reflected distinct scanning strategies, fixation patterns, and saccade characteristics.
Predictive validity: Visual acuity alone failed to predict athletic performance. When eye-tracking metrics were incorporated, the model explained 52% of performance variance, with longer fixation durations, intrusive saccades, and extended scan paths emerging as the most informative predictors.
Toward Fairer Para Sports
Accurately measuring functional vision is also critical for fair competition in Paralympic sports. Currently, athletes with visual impairments are classified in different sport classes to minimise the impact of the impairment on the outcome of competition. This classification system is based on traditional eye tests, which may not fully reflect how they see and perform in practice. This can create imbalances in competition.
By quantifying how athletes actively use their vision, Nieboer and Mann showed that eye tracking provides a more precise and functionally relevant assessment of visual ability. These insights could help refine the classification system, ensuring that Para athletes with vision impairment compete on a level playing field.
Functional Vision Matters in Life, Not Just Sport
This study illustrates how eye tracking can quantify functional vision in ways that traditional clinical tests cannot. For Para athletes, it provides an objective, scientifically grounded understanding of how visual impairment interacts with performance, potentially informing tailored training and adaptive strategies.
Moreover, these insights extend beyond sport. Eye tracking can enhance clinical assessment, rehabilitation, and daily task evaluation for individuals with VI, offering a window into how vision is actively used in the real world, rather than only what the eyes can detect under static conditions.
Explore Further
Full article: https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2810796
Research Center: Institute for research on Brain, Body and Behaviour (iBBA), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.