A growing body of evidence suggests that people with nystagmus need more time to see the world around them than those with ordinary vision. However, existing sight tests for distance vision take no account of response times and are a poor measure of the impact of nystagmus on functional vision.

The charity Nystagmus Network are funding a £15,000 project to investigate the slow to see phenomenon in nystagmus.

Professor Harris is looking for volunteers to take part in this project. It simply involves visiting the University of Plymouth and looking at a screen and saying which way a letter C is pointing. Anyone with early onset nystagmus interested in taking part in this research should contact info@nystagmusnet.org

Nystagmus Network chairman Richard Wilson said: “Slow response times are one of those little understood quirks of nystagmus, but they have such a big impact on our daily lives. We hope this research will help clinicians to measure the slow to see phenomenon more effectively and increase our knowledge of what’s going on in the vision of people with nystagmus.”

In a survey by Aniridia Foundation International of 83 people with aniridia, over 80% of people also had nystagmus.