Olfaction-Enhanced Virtual Reality Game for Visual Acuity in Adults with Amblyopia

Amblyopia (lazy eye) is one of the most common neurological eye conditions in the world, where the brain ignores the vision of the weaker eye. It is usually treated before the age of 10 with an eye patch to cover the strong eye, forcing the brain to use the weaker eye. The use of serious games in virtual reality (VR) has shown promising results in therapy for adults with Amblyopia, which was often considered significantly harder to treat. This paper reports using a VR game developed in collaboration with an Ophthalmologist to improve visual acuity in adults with Amblyopia. We hypothesize that adding olfactory stimulus makes the game more effective by increasing presence in the virtual environment and acting as a reward to help maintain the player’s attention and improve their performance on the training task. 105 participants played the game with and without the use of olfactory feedback. We found that while participants’ visual acuity didn’t increase by a clinically significant margin, however, the game scores were significantly higher in the smell condition.