--- title: This Virtual Reality Game Could Help Treat Lazy Eye description: Vivid Vision founder James Blaha hopes his virtual reality games will create new solutions for vision therapy canonical: https://time.com/4154830/virtual-reality-lazy-eye/ author: TIME Video article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-05T19:42:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-30T11:57:02.195Z article:section: Health og:title: This Virtual Reality Game Could Help Treat Lazy Eye og:description: Vivid Vision founder James Blaha hopes his virtual reality games will create new solutions for vision therapy og:url: https://time.com/4154830/virtual-reality-lazy-eye/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte61632d9867e6e62/69887694f887dcc599e93e11/vividvision_1280.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: James Blaha Vivid Vision og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Virtual Reality Game Could Help Treat Lazy Eye twitter:description: Vivid Vision founder James Blaha hopes his virtual reality games will create new solutions for vision therapy twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte61632d9867e6e62/69887694f887dcc599e93e11/vividvision_1280.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Virtual Reality Game Could Help Treat Lazy Eye by [TIME Video](https://time.com/author/time-video/) and [Diane Tsai](https://time.com/author/diane-tsai/) Jan 5, 2016 7:42 PM UTC  by [TIME Video](https://time.com/author/time-video/) and [Diane Tsai](https://time.com/author/diane-tsai/) Jan 5, 2016 7:42 PM UTC “People who have vision impairment are always wondering what it is they’re missing, how much their vision is kind of holding them back,” says James Blaha, 28. Blaha has lived with amblyopia and strabismus, also known as lazy eye and crossed eyes, for most of his life, and that’s what prompted him to found Vivid Vision, a virtual-reality vision therapy game company. The games are played using [Oculus Rift and send](http://time.com/39577/facebook-oculus-vr-inside-story/) specific images to each eye in an effort to train the lazy or crossed eye to work harder. “We’ll take specific objects in the virtual space and render them a lot brighter to the weak eye, and a lot dimmer to the strong eye,” Blaha explains. “At a certain threshold, the brain kind of says, ‘OK, there’s something unique going on in this eye that I have to pay attention to,’ and it turns it back on.” The results of an ongoing study using the technology, led by Dr. Marc Levin, A neuro-ophthalmologist at the University of California, San Francisco, are expected to be released by the end of 2016. _Video produced by Granny Cart Productions_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4154830/virtual-reality-lazy-eye/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4154830/virtual-reality-lazy-eye/"},"headline":"This Virtual Reality Game Could Help Treat Lazy Eye","datePublished":"2016-01-05T19:42:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-30T11:57:02.195Z","description":"Vivid Vision founder James Blaha hopes his virtual reality games will create new solutions for vision therapy","url":"https://time.com/4154830/virtual-reality-lazy-eye/","keywords":["Oculus Rift","Virtual Reality","cloud"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte61632d9867e6e62/69887694f887dcc599e93e11/vividvision_1280.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Video","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-video/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Diane Tsai","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/diane-tsai/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte61632d9867e6e62/69887694f887dcc599e93e11/vividvision_1280.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"James Blaha Vivid Vision","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4154830/virtual-reality-lazy-eye/","name":"This Virtual Reality Game Could Help Treat Lazy Eye"}}]}] ```