Translator: Rhonda Jacobs Reviewer: Denise RQ
This is a painting by the famous American artist, Norman Rockwell.
Take a look at it for a moment.
What do you see?
Where are you looking?
The longer I looked at this painting, the more I began to see,
such as the dog.
But maybe the dog was the first thing that you looked at.
How are you looking at the painting?
Are you focusing in on one spot?
Or are your eyes skipping about, trying to take everything in?
Are you able to see it in clear and sharp focus?
Are you looking where I'm looking?
Are you looking where the person next to you is looking?
What if you could see through someone else's eyes?
We use our eyes to take in 90 percent of everything that's going on around us.
All other senses combined are just ten percent.
So if there was a place we should be looking, we should know about it.
Right?
I grew up playing tennis in Australia,
came to the United States on a college tennis scholarship,
and turned professional.
I've coached for about 20 years.
Back when I was 22 years of age,
I was the youngest coach in NCAA Division I history.
But looking back, wow, did I have a lot to learn.
Take freshmen men and deodorant, for example.
(Laughter)
It's not optional.
(Laughter)
Even on a college budget.
It's not a 'one and done' application.
And no, I do not care what your mother says,
it does not smell sweet.
But I digress.
I got my PhD in human movement,
and was part of a group of coaches ranked number one in the world.
But the longer I studied and coached,
the less and less I felt like I knew about the game of tennis
where I was supposed to be an expert.
Early on in my PhD work, I read a 30-word paragraph in a textbook,
and it really opened my eyes.
It said, "Elite level soccer players do not watch the ball."
And the reason we know this is because there's a new technology out there
that allows us to see where people are looking.
It's called an "eye tracker."
But wait a moment.
Everybody knows to watch the ball; it's a foundation concept.
It's the first thing I was taught;
it's the first thing I teach other people.
Here's a ball; watch it.
But if elite level soccer players don't watch the ball,
then maybe elite level tennis players don't either.
I began thinking back to my own play,
and I thought, how was it that I was as successful as I was as a professional,
but I was never the fastest, or the tallest or the strongest.
I know, you may be asking, "What skills did you have?"
(Laughter)
I started asking myself the same question.
And people would say, "You anticipate well."
So I began looking at the kids that I coached,
and I noticed they would stop,
frozen in place,
waiting until they saw the direction that the ball was going.
But in those critical couple of seconds,
in a game where the ball can travel up to 160 miles an hour,
they responded too late.
The game is simply too fast to wait.
So this is what I studied for my PhD.
I know, some people study the human genome,
biochemistry, physics.
I studied a fluffy, yellow ball going back and forth.
But I learnt something very important,
and that is, experience teaches us where to look.
Experienced tennis players watch the arm as it comes forward on the serve.
This tells them the direction the ball's going to go.
Inexperienced tennis players wait and watch for the ball.
The same is true in soccer, lacrosse, football, baseball, hockey;
the list goes on.
Through the convergence of science and eye-tracking technology,
we were able to dispel a long-held assumption,
which is: watch the ball.
Now can this be used for other applications?
Have you ever seen a teenager drive?
They look at the hood of the car and the lines on the road.
Experienced drivers look 20 feet out in front.
They have a routine between the mirrors,
and they know everything that's going on around them.
This helps them to anticipate what's coming on down the road.
If you text and drive,
you look at the same places as inexperienced drivers.
If you drink and drive,
you look at the same places as inexperienced drivers.
The bottom line is the same -
an inability to react to a dynamic and fast-changing environment.
You can look at the myriad of statistics that will tell us
an increase in accidents and fatalities.
Where you look matters.
When you have a conversation with somebody,
where are we taught to look?
Look them in your eyes, right?
At least in Western culture, that's what we're taught,
because if you don't do that, you may be seen as rude or deceptive.
But let's take that concept into a recent hot-button issue,
which is police shootings.
A novice police officer is engaged with an assailant,
and he does what every one of us would do,
he looks him in the eyes.
But in less under two seconds, this happens.
And now the police scanner says, "Officer down."
Take a similar scenario:
the novice police officer again engaged with an assailant.
And because he is looking in the eyes, he fails to recognize what's in the hand.
And the assailant picks up a cell phone in order to make a call.
The police officer misidentifies it, reacts, and shoots.
Now the scanner says, "Civilian down."
The veteran police officer does something different though.
Experience has taught him where to look.
And he looks for the greatest threat, which are the hands.
He identifies the gun, and he identifies the cell phone,
and he reacts appropriately.
Now the death of the novice police officer and of the civilian are clearly tragic.
But they are both potentially preventable by knowing where to look.
They can also be trained
through simulations and modeling after the veteran police officer
in order to avert these tragedies in the future.
So far I've talked about where you're looking.
This can help us anticipate better, make better decisions,
improve safety, and even save lives.
But our eyes also tell us how we look at something.
My grandfather was a World War II veteran.
And he came back to Australia,
and he had what was diagnosed at that time as "shell shock."
In today's world we call it a concussion or a traumatic brain injury.
And one of the ways that we assess for this in today's world,
is the doctor will ask you to follow their finger with your eyes.
We can re-create and refine this test using eye-tracking.
Here’s an example of somebody who has not had a concussion,
following a dot around in a circle on a screen
while their eyes are being tracked.
Now let's compare that to somebody who has had a concussion.
The technology allows us to see the differences.
The data allows us to quantify those differences.
And what we know is that if somebody follows that dot around in a circle
in a smooth fashion with their eyes 80 percent of the time or more,
that's considered relatively normal.
However, if their eyes skip about,
then that may be one possible indicator of a concussion.
Using the convergence of science and eye-tracking technology,
we are now able to quantify this, be highly specific,
and track it over time.
This same methodology is now being used
to assess the symptoms of over 30 other neurological disorders,
such as ADHD, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's.
Early scans of these disorders can change the course of the disease
and impact the quality of that person's life.
So far I've spoken about where you look.
And that was just an example of 'how' you look at something.
But our eyes also reveal if we can see clearly.
Think back to when you were a child in school, learning to read.
In order to see the words on the book, your eyes need to converge.
There are times when this fails to happen though,
and that's called "convergence insufficiency."
And one of the reasons that may happen,
is because of the distance between your eyes.
The further set your eyes are apart,
the more effort it takes to converge at a near point, like a word in a book.
So if your eyes are set further apart,
you may actually be at a disadvantage for reading.
Now what do we do when we get tired?
We take a break.
When our eyes get tired, we may seemingly look around the classroom.
But from the teacher's perspective, we're now seen as being inattentive.
If you were like me as a child,
maybe you'd start shooting spitballs at Sally in front of you.
Now you're seen as being disruptive.
But either way, the next step is usually an assessment
by the specialist in a Special Education team.
And the first thing they're going to look for and assess for is your hearing.
Why? Because they want to eliminate any physical or biological reason
that may be causing the behavior.
What about vision?
Nope, not commonly asked or assessed.
And if vision is assessed, a basic visual screening
does not include convergence insufficiency.
So we are missing the potential to assist these kids in reading.
We are also potentially misdiagnosing them,
providing them with medications like Ritalin for ADHD,
when they should be getting reading glasses for convergence insufficiency.
The bottom line is the same:
The child is not getting the care that they need
and they may never get that care.
So what's the solution?
How do we help these children?
How do we help the athlete reach their potential?
How do we help the teenager park in the garage and not the garden bed?
It's all about "thinking next."
How do we take any and everything that we can assess through the eyes
and impact the life of others, whether they be young or old,
advantaged or disadvantaged?
My vision for seeing next is taking science,
eye-tracking technology, and cloud-based solutions
to provide instant results.
My vision is a scalable, portable solution that allows access for all.
My vision is a modern physical exam
that does early scans for over 30 neurological disorders
in less than two minutes.
My vision is to test for convergence insufficiency
and over 15 other vision-related disorders
as a standard in all American schools.
My vision is to assess the entire US prison population
where illiteracy is 85 percent,
where medications for attention and behavioral issues
may be over-prescribed,
where they may have never had a vision test.
But we don't want to stop there.
My vision is to provide this solution throughout communities
and to children throughout the world
in order to impact their lives
when they may never have had access to such a solution.
My vision is not only to assess but also to train,
providing interactive and fun games
with virtual reality and virtual intelligence,
games that change as you change and get better.
My vision is an all-in-one device
that assesses any and everything through your eyes,
in order to impact the quality of everyone's life.
And provide a life that has yet to be discovered.
My vision is becoming your reality sooner than you may expect.
Thank you.
(Applause)