Stimulus blanking reveals contrast-dependent transsaccadic feature transfer

Abstract Across saccadic eye movements, the visual system receives two successive static images corresponding to the pre- and the postsaccadic projections of the visual field on the retina. The existence of a mechanism integrating the content of these images is today still a matter of debate. Here, we studied the transfer of a visual feature across saccades using a blanking paradigm. Participants moved their eyes to a peripheral grating and discriminated a change in its orientation occurring during the eye movement. The grating was either constantly on the screen or briefly blanked during and after the saccade. Moreover, it either was of the same luminance as the background (i.e., isoluminant) or anisoluminant with respect to it. We found that for anisoluminant gratings, the orientation discrimination across saccades was improved when a blank followed the onset of the eye movement. Such effect was however abolished with isoluminant gratings. Additionally, performance was also improved when an anisoluminant grating presented before the saccade was followed by an isoluminant one. These results demonstrate that a detailed representation of the presaccadic image was transferred across saccades allowing participants to perform better on the transsaccadic orientation task. While such a transfer of visual orientation across saccade is masked in real-life anisoluminant conditions, the use of a blank and of an isoluminant postsaccadic grating allowed to reveal its existence.

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Stimulus blanking reveals transsaccadic feature transfer

10.1101/819110 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Lukasz Grzeczkowski ◽

Heiner Deubel ◽

Martin Szinte

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Eye Movement ◽

Real Life ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Orientation Discrimination ◽

Visual Features ◽

Visual Orientation ◽

Orientation Task ◽

Visual Projection ◽

Static Images

AbstractAcross saccadic eye movements, the visual system receives two successive static images corresponding to the pre- and the postsaccadic projections of the visual field on the retina. The existence of a mechanism integrating the content of these images is today still a matter of debate. Here, we studied the transfer of a visual feature across saccades using a blanking paradigm. Participants moved their eyes to a peripheral grating and discriminated a change in its orientation occurring during the eye movement. The grating was either constantly on the screen or briefly blanked during and after the saccade. Moreover, it either was of the same luminance as the background (i.e., isoluminant) or anisoluminant with respect to it. We found that for anisoluminant grating, the orientation discrimination across saccade was improved when a blank followed the onset of the eye movement. Such effect was however abolished with isoluminant grating. Additionally, performance was also improved when an anisoluminant grating presented before the saccade was followed by an isoluminant one. These results demonstrate that a detailed representation of the presaccadic image was transferred across saccades allowing participants to perform better on the trans-saccadic orientation task. While such a transfer of visual orientation across saccade is masked in real-life anisoluminant conditions, the use of a blank and of isoluminant postsaccadic grating allowed here to reveal its existence.Significance statementStatic objects are perceived as not moving across eye movements despite their visual projection shifts on our retina. To compensate for such shifts and create a continuous perception of space, our brain may keep track of objects’ visual features across our movements. We found that shortly blanking a contrast-defined object during and after saccades allows to recover a detailed representation of its orientation. We propose that the transfer of visual content across saccades revealed with the use of a simple blank plays an important role in ensuring our continuous and stable perception of the world.

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Visual Field Accuracy and Eye Movement Direction: A Child's Eye View

Perceptual and Motor Skills ◽

10.1177/003151258005000250 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 50 (2) ◽

pp. 631-636

Author(s):

Evans Mandes

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Visual Field ◽

Eye Movement ◽

Visual Fields ◽

Movement Direction

Post-exposural eye movements were studied in 32 adults and 24 7-yr.-old children. Stimuli were binary figures exposed tachistoscopically in both visual fields simultaneously. The data showed significant correlations between direction of eye movement and locus of recognition for both children and adults. No significant differences were found in frequencies of eye movements of children and adults. The data are interpreted in terms of the facilitative effects of post-exposural eye movements upon perception for both groups.

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A Fast and Effective System for Analysis of Optokinetic Waveforms with a Low-Cost Eye Tracking Device

Healthcare ◽

10.3390/healthcare9010010 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 10

Author(s):

Chong-Bin Tsai ◽

Wei-Yu Hung ◽

Wei-Yen Hsu

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Eye Tracking ◽

Eye Movement ◽

Low Cost ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Slow Phase ◽

Eye Tracker ◽

Effective System ◽

Tracking Device ◽

Traditional Approaches

Optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) is an involuntary eye movement induced by motion of a large proportion of the visual field. It consists of a “slow phase (SP)” with eye movements in the same direction as the movement of the pattern and a “fast phase (FP)” with saccadic eye movements in the opposite direction. Study of OKN can reveal valuable information in ophthalmology, neurology and psychology. However, the current commercially available high-resolution and research-grade eye tracker is usually expensive. Methods & Results: We developed a novel fast and effective system combined with a low-cost eye tracking device to accurately quantitatively measure OKN eye movement. Conclusions: The experimental results indicate that the proposed method achieves fast and promising results in comparisons with several traditional approaches.

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Vision as oculomotor reward: cognitive contributions to the dynamic control of saccadic eye movements

Cognitive Neurodynamics ◽

10.1007/s11571-020-09661-y ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Christian Wolf ◽

Markus Lappe

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Visual Field ◽

Visual System ◽

Dynamic Control ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Saccade Target ◽

Cognitive Mechanisms ◽

Foveal Vision ◽

Subsequent Behavior ◽

High Level

AbstractHumans and other primates are equipped with a foveated visual system. As a consequence, we reorient our fovea to objects and targets in the visual field that are conspicuous or that we consider relevant or worth looking at. These reorientations are achieved by means of saccadic eye movements. Where we saccade to depends on various low-level factors such as a targets’ luminance but also crucially on high-level factors like the expected reward or a targets’ relevance for perception and subsequent behavior. Here, we review recent findings how the control of saccadic eye movements is influenced by higher-level cognitive processes. We first describe the pathways by which cognitive contributions can influence the neural oculomotor circuit. Second, we summarize what saccade parameters reveal about cognitive mechanisms, particularly saccade latencies, saccade kinematics and changes in saccade gain. Finally, we review findings on what renders a saccade target valuable, as reflected in oculomotor behavior. We emphasize that foveal vision of the target after the saccade can constitute an internal reward for the visual system and that this is reflected in oculomotor dynamics that serve to quickly and accurately provide detailed foveal vision of relevant targets in the visual field.

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Phantom array and stroboscopic effects of a time-modulated moving light source during saccadic eye movement

Lighting Research and Technology ◽

10.1177/1477153517693468 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 50 (5) ◽

pp. 772-786 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

C-S Lee ◽

J-H Lee ◽

H Pak ◽

SW Park ◽

D-W Song

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Eye Movement ◽

Light Source ◽

Light Emitting Diode ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Movement Speed ◽

Light Sources ◽

Saccadic Eye Movement ◽

Modulated Light ◽

Source Motion

This paper evaluates the detectability of the phantom array and stroboscopic effects during light source motion, eye movement and their combination, using time modulated light-emitting diode light sources. It is well known that the phantom array can be observed when time-modulated light sources are observed during saccadic eye movements. We investigated whether light source motion can cause similar effects when the subject has fixed eyes. In addition, we estimated the detectability threshold frequency for the combination of stroboscopic effect and the phantom array, which is named the stroboscopic-phantom array effect, during two eye movements in opposite directions under one directional rotating light source with variable speed. Our results indicate that one of the most important factors for the stroboscopic-phantom array effect is eye movement speed relative to the speed of the light source. Therefore, time-modulated moving light sources induce a stroboscopic effect in subjects with fixed eyes that is similar to the stroboscopic-phantom array effect observed during saccadic eye movement. Our findings are likely to be useful for predicting the stroboscopic effect and the stroboscopic-phantom array effect during the fast motion of time-modulated LED light sources, like multi-functional rear lamps, in automotive lighting applications.

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Saccadic Eye Movements and Dual-Task Interference

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A ◽

10.1080/14640749308401067 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 46 (1) ◽

pp. 51-82 ◽

Cited By ~ 73

Author(s):

Harold Pashler ◽

Mark Carrier ◽

James Hoffman

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Eye Movement ◽

Dual Task ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Choice Response ◽

Task Interference ◽

The Right ◽

Colour Patch ◽

Dual Task Interference ◽

Close Temporal Proximity

Four dual-task experiments required a speeded manual choice response to a tone in a close temporal proximity to a saccadic eye movement task. In Experiment 1, subjects made a saccade towards a single transient; in Experiment 2, a red and a green colour patch were presented to left and right, and the saccade was to which ever patch was the pre-specified target colour. There was some slowing of the eye movement, but neither task combination showed typical dual-task interference (the “psychological refractory effect”). However, more interference was observed when the direction of the saccade depended on whether a central colour patch was red or green, or when the saccade was directed towards the numerically higher of two large digits presented to the left and the right. Experiment 5 examined a vocal second task, for comparison. The findings might reflect the fact that eye movements can be directed by two separate brain systems–-the superior colliculus and the frontal eye fields; commands from the latter but not the former may be delayed by simultaneous unrelated sensorimotor tasks.

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Visual Fatigue and Saccadic Eye Movement Parameters

Proceedings of the Human Factors Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/154193128302700818 ◽

1983 ◽

Vol 27 (8) ◽

pp. 728-732 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Ted Megaw ◽

Tayyar Sen

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Eye Movement ◽

Peak Velocity ◽

Cognitive Task ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Tracking Task ◽

Frequency Of Occurrence ◽

Saccadic Eye Movement ◽

Visual Fatigue ◽

Movement Parameters

It has been suggested by Bahill and Stark (1975) that visual fatigue can be identified by changes in some of the saccadic eye movement parameters. These include increases in the frequency of occurrence of glissades and overlapping saccades and reductions in the peak velocity and duration of saccades. In their study, fatigue was induced by the same step tracking task that was used to evaluate the changes in saccadic parameters. However, there is evidence that subjects experience extreme feelings of fatigue while performing such a task and that somehow the task is unnatural. The present study was designed to assess whether there are any differences in the various saccadic parameters obtained while subjects perform a step tracking task and a cognitive task involving the comparison of number strings. Both tasks were presented on a VDU screen. The second objective was to establish whether there are any changes in the parameters for either task as a result of prolonged performance. The results showed no major differences in the saccadic eye movements between the two tasks and no consistent changes resulting from prolonged performance.

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Time course of spatiotopic updating across saccades

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1812210116 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 116 (6) ◽

pp. 2027-2032 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Jasper H. Fabius ◽

Alessio Fracasso ◽

Tanja C. W. Nijboer ◽

Stefan Van der Stigchel

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Visual System ◽

Eye Movement ◽

Time Course ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Oculomotor System ◽

Stimulus Onset ◽

Oculomotor Behavior ◽

Behavioral Studies ◽

The Brain

Humans move their eyes several times per second, yet we perceive the outside world as continuous despite the sudden disruptions created by each eye movement. To date, the mechanism that the brain employs to achieve visual continuity across eye movements remains unclear. While it has been proposed that the oculomotor system quickly updates and informs the visual system about the upcoming eye movement, behavioral studies investigating the time course of this updating suggest the involvement of a slow mechanism, estimated to take more than 500 ms to operate effectively. This is a surprisingly slow estimate, because both the visual system and the oculomotor system process information faster. If spatiotopic updating is indeed this slow, it cannot contribute to perceptual continuity, because it is outside the temporal regime of typical oculomotor behavior. Here, we argue that the behavioral paradigms that have been used previously are suboptimal to measure the speed of spatiotopic updating. In this study, we used a fast gaze-contingent paradigm, using high phi as a continuous stimulus across eye movements. We observed fast spatiotopic updating within 150 ms after stimulus onset. The results suggest the involvement of a fast updating mechanism that predictively influences visual perception after an eye movement. The temporal characteristics of this mechanism are compatible with the rate at which saccadic eye movements are typically observed in natural viewing.

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