emina_round
Emina Alickovic

Scientist, PhD 

mail@eriksholm.com

By capturing EOG signals, we can pick up the movement of the eyes, and use this to steer the directionality of a hearing device. We are working towards using this to amplify the voice of the person, the user is looking at.
eog_animation1

What is electro oculography (EOG)?

Due to the natural metabolism processes that happen in the eye, there is a small dipole created from the cornea (being the positive pole) to the retina (being the negative pole).

If we were to place a pair of electrodes across the temples of the head, we could measure a voltage that would fluctuate as proportionally to the movement of our eye balls in the horizontal plane (we could also do this in the vertical plane if we place the electrodes on the above and below the eyes). This is what we call an EOG signal.

figure

EOG signals directly from the ears

Not only are we able to capture the EOG signal from electrodes across the temples of the head. By placing electrodes inside the ear cavities, we have been successful to record Ear-EOG signals that are almost identical to the EOG recorded in the standard format.

Further readings


Favre-Felix A, Graversen C, Dau T, Lunner T. (2017). Real-time estimation of eye gaze by in-ear electrodes.,Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2017.8037754.

Favre-Félix, A., Graversen, C., Hietkamp, R. K., Dau, T., & Lunner, T. (2018). Improving Speech Intelligibility by Hearing Aid Eye-Gaze Steering: Conditions With Head Fixated in a Multitalker Environment. Trends in Hearing, 22, 2331216518814388. doi:10.1177/2331216518814388