###### Abstract  
This study addresses the importance of salience placement before or after scotoma development for an efficient target allocation in the visual field. Pre-allocation of attention is a mechanism known to induce a better gaze positioning towards the target. Three different conditions were tested: a simulated central scotoma, a salience augmentation surrounding the scotoma and a baseline condition without any simulation. All conditions were investigated within a virtual reality VR gaming environment. Participants were tested in two different orders, either the salient cue was applied together with the scotoma before being presented with the scotoma alone or the scotoma in the wild was presented before and, then, with the augmentation around it. Both groups showed a change in gaze behaviour when saliency was applied. However, in the second group, salient augmentation also induced changes in gaze behaviour for the scotoma condition without augmentation, gazing above and outside the scotoma following previous literature. These preliminary results indicate salience placement before developing an advanced stage of scotoma can induce effective and rapid training for efficient target maintenance during VR gaming. The study shows the potential of salience and VR gaming as therapy for early AMD patients. AMD; salience; virtual reality; VR; preventive care +
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foveation behaviour, but in the end, one or more eccentric PRLs develop naturally [6; 7; 8; 9; 10]. Correct adaptation and use of the retinal areas with intact visual quality are a key part of safely continuing day-life activities such as safely crossing the street [11; 12]. New technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have recently proposed new assisting tools for patients suffering from macular degeneration [13; 14; 15]. These tools aim to improve the quality of life of patients by improving the eccentric viewing and assisting patients specifically during critical tasks. Embracing these new technologies and applying them to patients can assist them in improving eccentric fixation. Likewise, these technologies can be used with healthy subjects to study improvements in gaze behaviour under simulated visual loss conditions. Standardised gaze-contingent scotoma simulations can change gaze behaviour in healthy participants in the same way as patients do [16; 17; 18; 19; 20] and scotoma simulations can replicate visual loss in a standardised manner with a well-defined area and filling [21; 22; 23]. Thanks to this standardization, there is the advantage to overcome the variability of different shapes and positions the scotoma patients bring into studies [16; 17] and investigate augmentations in a generalized manner that can get later validated when applied to patients [24]. In this study, a standardised gaze-contingent scotoma simulation was used to occlude the central vision bilaterally to test, for the first time, the effects of gaze placement before and after salience application. The study's purpose was to test the hypothesis according to which preventive attention placement can lead to a better target positioning in relation to scotomas [4; 25]. An augmented peripheral cue was designed to be perceived as salient, and induce the eyes to position a moving target outside the central occluded area. The circular cue was applied to the dominant eye only, in the periphery and gaze-contingent. A unique-eye-of-origin stimulus presented in the periphery is known to attract the gaze towards its position; it induces a popping-out effect, known as saliency [26]. Furthermore, the augmentation was gaze-contingent, with a constant position in the peripheral visual field. It is known that peripheral cues have an automatic component of attention allocation that once they have triggered it, its focus is preserved in that location [27; 28].