Announcement

Winners in the 2002 Naylor Prize competition

With the passage of time, the demands made on theknowledge and skill of members of the optometricprofession are steadily increasing. While this is reflectedin the growing content of the core optometry degreecourses, project or dissertation work provides a valuableadditional opportunity for students to enlarge theirknowledge of particular areas of optometry and visualscience, to develop the critical skills required to evaluaterelevant new research and, perhaps, to contributethemselves to the progress of their chosen profession.The Naylor Prize, instituted in memory of Dr JonNaylor, one of the founding fathers of UMIST’s degreecourse, is designed to encourage work in this area.First Prize in the 2002 Competition went to Claire

Donald, of Glasgow Caledonian University, for herreport �The lissamine green stain: what is it highlightingon the palpebral conjunctiva?� This was an interestingand careful exploration of the use of lissamine green toidentify Marx’s line on the superior conjunctiva and torelate its appearance to the sex, age and symptoms ofsome 40 subjects. Although no strong correlations werefound, the study provides a valuable baseline for furtherwork in this area, which may prove useful in relation todry eye patients.A Cardiff student, Debbie Wiggins, was awarded

second prize for her project report �The effect of eyeposition in the orbit on the characteristics of congenitalnystagmus�. Although only a small fraction of patientssuffer from this condition, it creates real problems forthose involved. A fuller description of its characteristicsmay be helpful both in relation to the problems of theindividuals concerned and in helping us to understandboth normal and abnormal eye movements. Using infra-red limbal tracking, the study was able to confirm earlierreports that most congenital nystagmus patients have agaze direction in which the intensity of the eyes�oscillation is minimal. The waveform of the oscillationwas found to change in this gaze direction in such a wayas to increase foveation time and hence improve acuity.Another Glasgow student, Mhairi Day, received the

third prize for her project �Electrophysiology of change

blindness�. Change blindness is the phenomenon inwhich, under some circumstances, surprisingly largechanges in the visual world can occur without beingdetected by an observer. Examples are changes occur-ring during a saccade, a film cut, image flicker or thepresence of a brief distracting stimulus. The effectshave obvious practical significance, for example to thedriving situation. The study attempted to determinewhether there were differences in the electrophysiolog-ical responses obtained when a change was detectedand when change blindness occurred. In particular, thehope was to clarify whether change might be detectedat a lower level by the visual system, yet fail to beperceived. Although subtle differences were found inthe event-related potentials, the study failed to fullyconfirm that implicit recognition could occur. Never-theless it produced a good deal of information on thisintriguing topic and helped to clear the stage forfurther work.The final prize was awarded to Andrew Preston, of

Bradford University, for his dissertation �Should chil-dren’s visual screening continue in the UK?�. This is acontentious issue on which many practitioners holdstrong views. Andrew presented a thoughtful review ofavailable screening methods and their applicability atvarious age levels in relation to the visual problems to beidentified.All told, the broad spectrum of entries from the

various teaching departments gave encouraging evi-dence that today’s students are being well prepared toactively participate in the development of 21st centuryoptometry. Undoubtedly many of the undergraduateprojects will form the basis of further work at postgra-duate level.

Professor W. N. Charman

Department of Optometry and Neuroscience

UMIST, PO Box 88

Manchester M60 1QD

UK

Ophthal. Physiol. Opt. 2003 23: 285

ª 2003 The College of Optometrists 285ª 2003 The College of Optometrists