LOCALIZATION OF OBJECTS IN VISUAL SPACE WITH ABNORMAL SACCADIC EYE MOVEMENTS

Results are presented from an experiment in which subjects’ eye movements were recorded while they carried out two visual tasks with similar material. One task was chosen to require close visual scrutiny; the second was less visually demanding. The oculomotor behaviour in the two tasks differed in three ways. (1) When scrutinizing, there was a reduction in the area of visual space over which stimulation influences saccadic eye movements. (2) When moving their eyes to targets requiring scrutiny, subjects were more likely to make a corrective saccade. (3) The duration of fixations on targets requiring scrutiny was increased. The results are discussed in relation to current theories of visual attention and the control of saccadic eye movements.

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Eye movements shape visual learning

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1913851117 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 117 (14) ◽

pp. 8203-8211 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Pooya Laamerad ◽

Daniel Guitton ◽

Christopher C. Pack

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Visual Processing ◽

Visual Learning ◽

Visual Space ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Spatial Integration ◽

Perceptual Stability ◽

Extensive Training ◽

Visual Tasks ◽

Saccade Task

Most people easily learn to recognize new faces and places, and with more extensive practice they can become experts at visual tasks as complex as radiological diagnosis and action video games. Such perceptual plasticity has been thoroughly studied in the context of training paradigms that require constant fixation. In contrast, when observers learn under more natural conditions, they make frequent saccadic eye movements. Here we show that such eye movements can play an important role in visual learning. Observers performed a task in which they executed a saccade while discriminating the motion of a cued visual stimulus. Additional stimuli, presented simultaneously with the cued one, permitted an assessment of the perceptual integration of information across visual space. Consistent with previous results on perisaccadic remapping [M. Szinte, D. Jonikaitis, M. Rolfs, P. Cavanagh, H. Deubel,J. Neurophysiol.116, 1592–1602 (2016)], most observers preferentially integrated information from locations representing the presaccadic and postsaccadic retinal positions of the cue. With extensive training on the saccade task, these observers gradually acquired the ability to perform similar motion integration without making eye movements. Importantly, the newly acquired pattern of spatial integration was determined by the metrics of the saccades made during training. These results suggest that oculomotor influences on visual processing, long thought to subserve the function of perceptual stability, also play a role in visual plasticity.

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Compression of Visual Space before Saccades

Perception ◽

10.1068/v970052 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 26 (1_suppl) ◽

pp. 100-100 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

D C Burr ◽

M C Morrone ◽

J Ross

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Coordinate System ◽

Human Visual System ◽

Visual Space ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Forced Choice ◽

Smooth Transition ◽

Visual Signal ◽

Saccade Target ◽

Apparent Position

We studied how the human visual system recalibrates visual coordinates to compensate for saccadic eye movements. Observers made 20 horizontal saccades to a target on an otherwise featureless red screen, and reported the apparent position of a vertical green bar that was briefly displayed before, during, or after the saccade. Bars presented 50 ms before the beginning of the saccade, or after its completion, were perceived accurately and veridically. However, bars presented immediately prior to the saccade were systematically mislocated, either in the direction of the saccade or in the opposite direction, depending on the spatial position of the bar. This result has been verified by various techniques including Vernier offset estimation, and a forced-choice annulling task. When four bars (straddling the saccade target) were displayed in the interval −25 to 0 ms, they were seen to be merged into 1 bar (forced choice). None of these effects could be mimicked by causing the scene to move at saccadic speeds and amplitudes. The results suggest that each saccade is accompanied by a non-visual signal that displaces the retinal coordinate system, and a momentary compression of visual space. The perceptual compression may be instrumental in ensuring a smooth transition from fixation to fixation.

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Expansion of visual space after saccadic eye movements

Journal of Vision ◽

10.1167/3.11.22 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 3 (11) ◽

pp. 22 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Soohyun Cho ◽

Choongkil Lee

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Visual Space ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements

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The role of presaccadic compression of visual space in spatial remapping across saccadic eye movements

Vision Research ◽

10.1016/s0042-6989(03)00301-8 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 43 (18) ◽

pp. 1969-1981 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Kazumichi Matsumiya ◽

Keiji Uchikawa

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Visual Space ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements

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A sensory memory to preserve visual representations across eye movements

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-021-26756-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Amir Akbarian ◽

Kelsey Clark ◽

Behrad Noudoost ◽

Neda Nategh

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Visual Information ◽

Visual Space ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Visual Scene ◽

High Temporal Resolution ◽

Late Response ◽

Visual World ◽

Saccade Onset ◽

Retinal Information

AbstractSaccadic eye movements (saccades) disrupt the continuous flow of visual information, yet our perception of the visual world remains uninterrupted. Here we assess the representation of the visual scene across saccades from single-trial spike trains of extrastriate visual areas, using a combined electrophysiology and statistical modeling approach. Using a model-based decoder we generate a high temporal resolution readout of visual information, and identify the specific changes in neurons’ spatiotemporal sensitivity that underly an integrated perisaccadic representation of visual space. Our results show that by maintaining a memory of the visual scene, extrastriate neurons produce an uninterrupted representation of the visual world. Extrastriate neurons exhibit a late response enhancement close to the time of saccade onset, which preserves the latest pre-saccadic information until the post-saccadic flow of retinal information resumes. These results show how our brain exploits available information to maintain a representation of the scene while visual inputs are disrupted.

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