Differences on Prosaccade Task in Skilled and Less Skilled Female Adolescent Soccer Players

Although the relationship between cognitive processes and saccadic eye movements has been outlined, the relationship between specific cognitive processes underlying saccadic eye movements and skill level of soccer players remains unclear. Present study used the prosaccade task as a tool to investigate the difference in saccadic eye movements in skilled and less skilled Chinese female adolescent soccer players. Fifty-six healthy female adolescent soccer players (range: 14–18years, mean age: 16.5years) from Fujian Youth Football Training Base (Fujian Province, China) took part in the experiment. In the prosaccade task, participants were instructed to fixate at the cross at the center of the screen as long as the target appeared peripherally. They were told to saccade to the target as quickly and accurately as possible once it appeared. The results indicated that skilled soccer players exhibited shorter saccade latency (p=0.031), decreased variability of saccade latency (p=0.013), and higher spatial accuracy of saccade (p=0.032) than their less skilled counterparts. The shorter saccade latency and decreased variability of saccade latency may imply that the attentional system of skilled soccer player is superior which leads to smaller attention fluctuation and less attentional lapse. Additionally, higher spatial accuracy of saccade may imply potential structural differences in brain underlying saccadic eye movement between skilled and less skilled soccer players. More importantly, the results of the present study demonstrated that soccer players’ cognitive capacities vary as a function of their skill levels. The limitations of the present study and future directions of research were discussed.

Voluntary Spatial Attention has Different Effects on Voluntary and Reflexive Saccades

The Scientific World JOURNAL ◽

10.1100/tsw.2003.72 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

pp. 881-902 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Stephanie K. Seidlits ◽

Tammie Reza ◽

Kevin A. Briand ◽

Anne B. Sereno

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Spatial Attention ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Fundamental Issue ◽

Fixation Condition ◽

The Subject ◽

Symbolic Cues ◽

The Relationship ◽

Reflexive Saccades ◽

Gap Paradigm

Although numerous studies have investigated the relationship between saccadic eye movements and spatial attention, one fundamental issue remains controversial. Some studies have suggested that spatial attention facilitates saccades, whereas others have claimed that eye movements are actually inhibited when spatial attention is engaged. However, these discrepancies may be because previous research has neglected to separate and specify the effects of attention for two distinct types of saccades, namely reflexive (stimulus-directed) and voluntary (antisaccades). The present study explored the effects of voluntary spatial attention on both voluntary and reflexive saccades. Results indicate that voluntary spatial attention has different effects on the two types of saccades. Antisaccades were always greatly facilitated following the engagement of spatial attention by symbolic cues (arrows) informing the subject where the upcoming saccade should be directed. Reflexive saccades showed little or no cueing effects and exhibited significant facilitation only when these cues were randomly intermixed with uncued trials. In addition, the present study tested the effects of fixation condition (gap, step, and overlap) on attentional modulation. Cueing effects did not vary due to fixation condition. Thus, voluntary spatial attention consistently showed different effects on voluntary and reflexive saccades, and there was no evidence in these studies that voluntary cues inhibit reflexive saccades, even in a gap paradigm.

Role of Saccadic Eye Movements in Cognitive Processes

Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine ◽

10.1007/s10517-009-0462-x ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 147 (1) ◽

pp. 11-14

Author(s):

N. A. Ryabchikova ◽

B. H. Bazyian ◽

V. B. Poliansky ◽

O. A. Pletnev

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Cognitive Processes ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements

Edit Blindness: The relationship between attention and global change blindness in dynamic scenes.

Journal of Eye Movement Research ◽

10.16910/jemr.2.2.6 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Tim J. Smith ◽

John M. Henderson

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Change Blindness ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Sudden Onset ◽

Dynamic Scene ◽

Dynamic Scenes ◽

Film Editing ◽

Feature Films ◽

Scene Viewing ◽

Although we experience the visual world as a continuous, richly detailed space we often fail to notice large and significant changes. Such change blindness has been demonstrated for local object changes and changes to the visual form of whole images, however it is assumed that total changes from one image to another would be easily detected. Film editing presents such total changes several times a minute yet we rarely seem to be aware of them, a phenomenon we refer to here as edit blindness. This phenomenon has never been empirically demonstrated even though film editors believe they have at their disposal techniques that induce edit blindness, the Continuity Editing Rules. In the present study we tested the relationship between Continuity Editing Rules and edit blindness by instructing participants to detect edits while watching excerpts from feature films. Eye movements were recorded during the task. The results indicate that edits constructed according to the Continuity Editing Rules result in greater edit blindness than edits not adhering to the rules. A quarter of edits joining two viewpoints of the same scene were undetected and this increased to a third when the edit coincided with a sudden onset of motion. Some cuts may be missed due to suppression of the cut transients by coinciding with eyeblinks or saccadic eye movements but the majority seem to be due to inattentional blindness as viewers attend to the depicted narrative. In conclusion, this study presents the first empirical evidence of edit blindness and its relationship to natural attentional behaviour during dynamic scene viewing.

Initiation of saccades during fixation or pursuit: evidence in humans for a single mechanism

10.1152/jn.1996.76.6.4175 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 76 (6) ◽

pp. 4175-4179 ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

R. J. Krauzlis ◽

F. A. Miles

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Human Subjects ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Saccade Latency ◽

Gap Effect ◽

Time Interval ◽

Single Mechanism ◽

Eccentric Target

1. In four human subjects, we measured the latency of saccadic eye movements made to a second, eccentric target after an initial, foveated target was extinguished. In separate interleaved trails, the targets were either both stationary (“fixation”) or both moving with the same velocity (“pursuit”). For both fixation and pursuit trials, we extinguished the first target at randomized times during maintained fixation or pursuit and varied the time interval (“gap duration”) before the appearance of the second target. 2. During both fixation and pursuit, the presence of a 200-ms gap reduced the latencies of saccades, compared with those obtained with no gap. For two subjects, we imposed additional, intermediate gap durations and found that saccade latencies varied as a function of gap duration. Furthermore, the latencies of saccades elicited during pursuit displayed the same dependence on gap duration as those elicited during fixation. 3. Our results demonstrate that the “gap effect” observed for saccades made during fixation also occurs for saccades made during pursuit. To the extent that the gap effect on saccade latency reflects a mechanism underlying the release of fixation, our results suggest that the same mechanism is invoked for saccades made during pursuit. From the viewpoint of initiating saccades, the existence of separate fixation and pursuit systems may be irrelevant.

The Limitations of Reward Effects on Saccade Latencies: An Exploration of Task-Specificity and Strength

Vision ◽

10.3390/vision3020020 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 20 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Stephen Dunne ◽

Amanda Ellison ◽

Daniel T. Smith

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Operant Conditioning ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Oculomotor System ◽

Saccade Latency ◽

Visually Guided ◽

Task Specificity ◽

Specific Effects ◽

Spatial Locations

Saccadic eye movements are simple, visually guided actions. Operant conditioning of specific saccade directions can reduce the latency of eye movements in the conditioned direction. However, it is not clear to what extent this learning transfers from the conditioned task to novel tasks. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the effects of operant conditioning of prosaccades to specific spatial locations would transfer to more complex oculomotor behaviours, specifically, prosaccades made in the presence of a distractor (Experiment 1) and antisaccades (Experiment 2). In part 1 of each experiment, participants were rewarded for making a saccade to one hemifield. In both experiments, the reward produced a significant facilitation of saccadic latency for prosaccades directed to the rewarded hemifield. In part 2, rewards were withdrawn, and the participant made a prosaccade to targets that were accompanied by a contralateral distractor (Experiment 1) or an antisaccade (Experiment 2). There were no hemifield-specific effects of the reward on saccade latency on the remote distractor effect or antisaccades, although the reward was associated with an overall slowing of saccade latency in Experiment 1. These data indicate that operant conditioning of saccadic eye movements does not transfer to similar but untrained tasks. We conclude that rewarding specific spatial locations is unlikely to induce long-term, systemic changes to the human oculomotor system.

Dynamic properties of medial rectus motoneurons during vergence eye movements

10.1152/jn.1992.67.1.64 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 67 (1) ◽

pp. 64-74 ◽

Cited By ~ 45

Author(s):

P. D. Gamlin ◽

L. E. Mays

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Firing Rate ◽

Smooth Pursuit ◽

Dynamic Properties ◽

Medial Rectus ◽

Velocity Signal ◽

Velocity Sensitivity ◽

The Difference ◽

Eye Velocity ◽

1. An early study by Keller reported that medial rectus motoneurons display a step change in firing rate during accommodative vergence movements. However, a later study by Mays and Porter reported gradual changes in firing rate during symmetrical vergence movements. Furthermore, subsequent inspection of the activity of individual medial rectus motoneurons during vergence movements indicated transient changes in their firing rate that had not been noted by Mays and Porter. For conjugate eye movements, in addition to a position signal, motoneurons display an eye velocity signal that compensates for the characteristics of the oculomotor plant. This suggested that the transient change in firing rate seen during vergence movements represented a velocity signal. Therefore the present study used single-unit recording techniques in alert rhesus monkeys to examine the dynamic behavior of medial rectus motoneurons during vergence eye movements. 2. The relationship between firing rate and eye velocity was first studied for vergence responses to step changes in binocular disparity and accommodative demand. Inspection of single trials showed that medial rectus motoneurons display transient changes in firing rate during vergence eye movements. To better visualize the dynamic signal during vergence movements, an expected firing rate (eye position multiplied by position sensitivity of the cell plus its baseline firing rate) was subtracted from the actual firing rate to yield a difference firing rate, which was displayed along with the eye velocity trace for individual trials. During all smooth symmetrical vergence movements, the profile of the difference firing rate very closely resembled the velocity profile. 3. To quantify the relationship between eye velocity and firing rate, two approaches were taken. In one, peak eye velocity was plotted against the difference firing rate. This plot yielded a measure of the velocity sensitivity of the cell (prv). In the other, a scatter plot was produced in which horizontal eye velocity throughout the vergence eye movement was plotted against the difference firing rate. This plot yielded a second measure of the velocity sensitivity of the cell (rv). 4. The behavior of 10 cells was studied during both sinusoidal vergence tracking and conjugate smooth pursuit over a range of frequencies from 0.125 to 1.0 Hz. This enabled the frequency sensitivity of the medial rectus motoneurons to be assessed for both types of movements. Both vergence velocity sensitivity and smooth pursuit velocity sensitivity decreased with increasing frequency. This is similar to a finding by Fuchs and co-workers for lateral rectus motoneurons during smooth pursuit eye movements.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Effects of eye position on electrically evoked saccades: a theoretical note

Visual Neuroscience ◽

10.1017/s0952523800001498 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 239-244 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

James T. McIlwain

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Internal Representation ◽

Target Position ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Brain Structures ◽

Initial Position ◽

Eye Position ◽

Saccadic System ◽

Early Processing ◽

The Difference

AbstractThe trajectories of saccadic eye movements evoked electrically from many brain structures are dependent to some degree on the initial position of the eye. Under certain conditions, likely to occur in stimulation experiments, local feedback models of the saccadic system can yield eye movements which behave in this way. The models in question assume that an early processing stage adds an internal representation of eye position to retinal error to yield a signal representing target position with respect to the head. The saccadic system is driven by the difference between this signal and one representing the current position of the eye. Albano & Wurtz (1982) pointed out that lesions perturbing the computation of eye position with respect to the head can result in initial position dependence of visually evoked saccades. It is shown here that position-dependent saccades will also result if electrical stimulation evokes a signal equivalent to retinal error but fails to effect a complete addition of eye position to this signal. Also, when multiple or staircase saccades are produced, as during long stimulus trains, they will have identical directions but decrease progressively in amplitude by a factor related to the fraction of added eye position.

Computerized Eye-Tracking Training Improves the Saccadic Eye Movements of Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Brain Sciences ◽

10.3390/brainsci10121016 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (12) ◽

pp. 1016

Author(s):

Tsz Lok Lee ◽

Michael K. Yeung ◽

Sophia L. Sze ◽

Agnes S. Chan

Keyword(s):

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ◽

Eye Movements ◽

Eye Tracking ◽

Attention Deficit ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Saccade Latency ◽

Pharmacological Intervention ◽

Control Group ◽

Children With Adhd ◽

Hyperactivity Disorder

Abnormal saccadic eye movements, such as longer anti-saccade latency and lower pro-saccade accuracy, are common in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of computerized eye-tracking training on improving saccadic eye movements in children with ADHD. Eighteen children with ADHD (mean age = 8.8 years, 10 males) were recruited and assigned to either the experimental (n = 9) or control group (n = 9). The experimental group underwent an accumulated 240 min of eye-tracking training within two weeks, whereas the control group engaged in web game playing for the same amount of time. Saccadic performances were assessed using the anti- and pro-saccade tasks before and after training. Compared to the baseline, only the children who underwent the eye-tracking training showed significant improvements in saccade latency and accuracy in the anti- and pro-saccade tasks, respectively. In contrast, the control group exhibited no significant changes. These preliminary findings support the use of eye-tracking training as a safe non-pharmacological intervention for improving the saccadic eye movements of children with ADHD.

Effects of superior temporal polysensory area lesions on eye movements in the macaque monkey

10.1152/jn.1995.73.1.1 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 73 (1) ◽

pp. 1-19 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

S. P. Scalaidhe ◽

T. D. Albright ◽

H. R. Rodman ◽

C. G. Gross

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Smooth Pursuit ◽

Temporal Cortex ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Saccade Latency ◽

Vertical Meridian ◽

Central Fixation Point ◽

Visuomotor Behavior ◽

Visual Targets ◽

Central Fixation

1. On the basis of its anatomic connections and single-unit properties, the superior temporal polysensory area (STP) would seem to be primarily involved in visuospatial functions. We have examined the effects of lesions of STP on saccadic eye movements, visual fixation, and smooth pursuit eye movements to directly test the hypothesis that STP is involved in visuospatial and visuomotor behavior. 2. Seven monkeys were trained to make saccades to targets 8, 15, and 22 degrees from a central fixation point along the horizontal meridian and 8 degrees from the central fixation point along the vertical meridian. One monkey was also trained to make saccades to auditory targets. The same monkeys were trained to foveate a stationary central fixation point and to follow it with a smooth pursuit eye movement when it began moving 5, 13, or 20 degrees/s. Four monkeys received unilateral STP lesions, one received a bilateral STP lesion, and as a control, two received unilateral inferior temporal cortex (IT) lesions. After testing, three of the animals with unilateral STP lesions received an additional STP lesion in the hemisphere contralateral to the first lesion. Similarly, one animal with a unilateral IT lesion received an additional IT lesion in the hemisphere contralateral to the first lesion. 3. All monkeys with complete removal of STP showed a significant increase in saccade latency to the most peripheral contralateral target, and most also had increased saccade latencies to the other contralateral targets. Saccades directed to targets along the vertical meridian or toward targets in the hemifield ipsilateral to the lesion were not impaired by removal of STP. By contrast, IT lesions did not impair the monkeys' ability to make saccadic eye movements to visual stimuli at any location, showing that saccades to visually guided targets are not impaired nonspecifically by damage to visual cortex. 4. The deficit in making eye movements after STP lesions was specific to saccade latency, with little effect on the accuracy of saccades to visual targets. 5. In the one monkey trained to make saccades to auditory targets, removal of STP did not impair saccades to auditory targets contralateral to its lesion, despite this monkey showing the largest increase in saccades latencies to visual targets. 6. There was complete recovery of saccade latency to the baseline level of performance on the saccade task after all STP lesions.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Transient spatiotopic integration across saccadic eye movements mediates visual stability

10.1152/jn.00478.2012 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 109 (4) ◽

pp. 1117-1125 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

Guido M. Cicchini ◽

Paola Binda ◽

David C. Burr ◽

M. Concetta Morrone

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Human Subjects ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Spatial Integration ◽

Interaction Field ◽

Wide Range ◽

External Objects ◽

Induced Motion ◽

Integration Mechanisms ◽

Eye movements pose major problems to the visual system, because each new saccade changes the mapping of external objects on the retina. It is known that stimuli briefly presented around the time of saccades are systematically mislocalized, whereas continuously visible objects are perceived as spatially stable even when they undergo large transsaccadic displacements. In this study we investigated the relationship between these two phenomena and measured how human subjects perceive the position of pairs of bars briefly displayed around the time of large horizontal saccades. We show that they interact strongly, with the perisaccadic bar being drawn toward the other, dramatically altering the pattern of perisaccadic mislocalization. The interaction field extends over a wide range (200 ms and 20°) and is oriented along the retinotopic trajectory of the saccade-induced motion, suggesting a mechanism that integrates pre- and postsaccadic stimuli at different retinal locations but similar external positions. We show how transient changes in spatial integration mechanisms, which are consistent with the present psychophysical results and with the properties of “remapping cells” reported in the literature, can create transient craniotopy by merging the distinct retinal images of the pre- and postsaccadic fixations to signal a single stable object.