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Sample records for binocular eye movements

  1. Binocular eye movement control and motion perception: what is being tracked?

    Science.gov (United States)

    van der Steen, Johannes; Dits, Joyce

    2012-10-19

    We investigated under what conditions humans can make independent slow phase eye movements. The ability to make independent movements of the two eyes generally is attributed to few specialized lateral eyed animal species, for example chameleons. In our study, we showed that humans also can move the eyes in different directions. To maintain binocular retinal correspondence independent slow phase movements of each eye are produced. We used the scleral search coil method to measure binocular eye movements in response to dichoptically viewed visual stimuli oscillating in orthogonal direction. Correlated stimuli led to orthogonal slow eye movements, while the binocularly perceived motion was the vector sum of the motion presented to each eye. The importance of binocular fusion on independency of the movements of the two eyes was investigated with anti-correlated stimuli. The perceived global motion pattern of anti-correlated dichoptic stimuli was perceived as an oblique oscillatory motion, as well as resulted in a conjugate oblique motion of the eyes. We propose that the ability to make independent slow phase eye movements in humans is used to maintain binocular retinal correspondence. Eye-of-origin and binocular information are used during the processing of binocular visual information, and it is decided at an early stage whether binocular or monocular motion information and independent slow phase eye movements of each eye are produced during binocular tracking.

  2. Binocular fusion and invariant category learning due to predictive remapping during scanning of a depthful scene with eye movements

    OpenAIRE

    Grossberg, Stephen; Srinivasan, Karthik; Yazdanbakhsh, Arash

    2015-01-01

    How does the brain maintain stable fusion of 3D scenes when the eyes move? Every eye movement causes each retinal position to process a different set of scenic features, and thus the brain needs to binocularly fuse new combinations of features at each position after an eye movement. Despite these breaks in retinotopic fusion due to each movement, previously fused representations of a scene in depth often appear stable. The 3D ARTSCAN neural model proposes how the brain does this by unifying ...

  3. Binocular Fusion and Invariant Category Learning due to Predictive Remapping during Scanning of a Depthful Scene with Eye Movements

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    Stephen eGrossberg

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available How does the brain maintain stable fusion of 3D scenes when the eyes move? Every eye movement causes each retinal position to process a different set of scenic features, and thus the brain needs to binocularly fuse new combinations of features at each position after an eye movement. Despite these breaks in retinotopic fusion due to each movement, previously fused representations of a scene in depth often appear stable. The 3D ARTSCAN neural model proposes how the brain does this by unifying concepts about how multiple cortical areas in the What and Where cortical streams interact to coordinate processes of 3D boundary and surface perception, spatial attention, invariant object category learning, predictive remapping, eye movement control, and learned coordinate transformations. The model explains data from single neuron and psychophysical studies of covert visual attention shifts prior to eye movements. The model further clarifies how perceptual, attentional, and cognitive interactions among multiple brain regions (LGN, V1, V2, V3A, V4, MT, MST, PPC, LIP, ITp, ITa, SC may accomplish predictive remapping as part of the process whereby view-invariant object categories are learned. These results build upon earlier neural models of 3D vision and figure-ground separation and the learning of invariant object categories as the eyes freely scan a scene. A key process concerns how an object’s surface representation generates a form-fitting distribution of spatial attention, or attentional shroud, in parietal cortex that helps maintain the stability of multiple perceptual and cognitive processes. Predictive eye movement signals maintain the stability of the shroud, as well as of binocularly fused perceptual boundaries and surface representations.

  4. Binocular fusion and invariant category learning due to predictive remapping during scanning of a depthful scene with eye movements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grossberg, Stephen; Srinivasan, Karthik; Yazdanbakhsh, Arash

    2015-01-01

    How does the brain maintain stable fusion of 3D scenes when the eyes move? Every eye movement causes each retinal position to process a different set of scenic features, and thus the brain needs to binocularly fuse new combinations of features at each position after an eye movement. Despite these breaks in retinotopic fusion due to each movement, previously fused representations of a scene in depth often appear stable. The 3D ARTSCAN neural model proposes how the brain does this by unifying concepts about how multiple cortical areas in the What and Where cortical streams interact to coordinate processes of 3D boundary and surface perception, spatial attention, invariant object category learning, predictive remapping, eye movement control, and learned coordinate transformations. The model explains data from single neuron and psychophysical studies of covert visual attention shifts prior to eye movements. The model further clarifies how perceptual, attentional, and cognitive interactions among multiple brain regions (LGN, V1, V2, V3A, V4, MT, MST, PPC, LIP, ITp, ITa, SC) may accomplish predictive remapping as part of the process whereby view-invariant object categories are learned. These results build upon earlier neural models of 3D vision and figure-ground separation and the learning of invariant object categories as the eyes freely scan a scene. A key process concerns how an object's surface representation generates a form-fitting distribution of spatial attention, or attentional shroud, in parietal cortex that helps maintain the stability of multiple perceptual and cognitive processes. Predictive eye movement signals maintain the stability of the shroud, as well as of binocularly fused perceptual boundaries and surface representations. PMID:25642198

  5. Binocular fusion and invariant category learning due to predictive remapping during scanning of a depthful scene with eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grossberg, Stephen; Srinivasan, Karthik; Yazdanbakhsh, Arash

    2014-01-01

    How does the brain maintain stable fusion of 3D scenes when the eyes move? Every eye movement causes each retinal position to process a different set of scenic features, and thus the brain needs to binocularly fuse new combinations of features at each position after an eye movement. Despite these breaks in retinotopic fusion due to each movement, previously fused representations of a scene in depth often appear stable. The 3D ARTSCAN neural model proposes how the brain does this by unifying concepts about how multiple cortical areas in the What and Where cortical streams interact to coordinate processes of 3D boundary and surface perception, spatial attention, invariant object category learning, predictive remapping, eye movement control, and learned coordinate transformations. The model explains data from single neuron and psychophysical studies of covert visual attention shifts prior to eye movements. The model further clarifies how perceptual, attentional, and cognitive interactions among multiple brain regions (LGN, V1, V2, V3A, V4, MT, MST, PPC, LIP, ITp, ITa, SC) may accomplish predictive remapping as part of the process whereby view-invariant object categories are learned. These results build upon earlier neural models of 3D vision and figure-ground separation and the learning of invariant object categories as the eyes freely scan a scene. A key process concerns how an object's surface representation generates a form-fitting distribution of spatial attention, or attentional shroud, in parietal cortex that helps maintain the stability of multiple perceptual and cognitive processes. Predictive eye movement signals maintain the stability of the shroud, as well as of binocularly fused perceptual boundaries and surface representations.

  6. The role of eye movement driven attention in functional strabismic amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Hao; Crewther, Sheila Gillard; Yin, Zheng Qin

    2015-01-01

    Strabismic amblyopia "blunt vision" is a developmental anomaly that affects binocular vision and results in lowered visual acuity. Strabismus is a term for a misalignment of the visual axes and is usually characterized by impaired ability of the strabismic eye to take up fixation. Such impaired fixation is usually a function of the temporally and spatially impaired binocular eye movements that normally underlie binocular shifts in visual attention. In this review, we discuss how abnormal eye movement function in children with misaligned eyes influences the development of normal binocular visual attention and results in deficits in visual function such as depth perception. We also discuss how eye movement function deficits in adult amblyopia patients can also lead to other abnormalities in visual perception. Finally, we examine how the nonamblyopic eye of an amblyope is also affected in strabismic amblyopia.

  7. The Role of Eye Movement Driven Attention in Functional Strabismic Amblyopia

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    Hao Wang

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Strabismic amblyopia “blunt vision” is a developmental anomaly that affects binocular vision and results in lowered visual acuity. Strabismus is a term for a misalignment of the visual axes and is usually characterized by impaired ability of the strabismic eye to take up fixation. Such impaired fixation is usually a function of the temporally and spatially impaired binocular eye movements that normally underlie binocular shifts in visual attention. In this review, we discuss how abnormal eye movement function in children with misaligned eyes influences the development of normal binocular visual attention and results in deficits in visual function such as depth perception. We also discuss how eye movement function deficits in adult amblyopia patients can also lead to other abnormalities in visual perception. Finally, we examine how the nonamblyopic eye of an amblyope is also affected in strabismic amblyopia.

  8. Hawk eyes I: diurnal raptors differ in visual fields and degree of eye movement.

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    Colleen T O'Rourke

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Different strategies to search and detect prey may place specific demands on sensory modalities. We studied visual field configuration, degree of eye movement, and orbit orientation in three diurnal raptors belonging to the Accipitridae and Falconidae families. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We used an ophthalmoscopic reflex technique and an integrated 3D digitizer system. We found inter-specific variation in visual field configuration and degree of eye movement, but not in orbit orientation. Red-tailed Hawks have relatively small binocular areas (∼33° and wide blind areas (∼82°, but intermediate degree of eye movement (∼5°, which underscores the importance of lateral vision rather than binocular vision to scan for distant prey in open areas. Cooper's Hawks' have relatively wide binocular fields (∼36°, small blind areas (∼60°, and high degree of eye movement (∼8°, which may increase visual coverage and enhance prey detection in closed habitats. Additionally, we found that Cooper's Hawks can visually inspect the items held in the tip of the bill, which may facilitate food handling. American Kestrels have intermediate-sized binocular and lateral areas that may be used in prey detection at different distances through stereopsis and motion parallax; whereas the low degree eye movement (∼1° may help stabilize the image when hovering above prey before an attack. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that: (a there are between-species differences in visual field configuration in these diurnal raptors; (b these differences are consistent with prey searching strategies and degree of visual obstruction in the environment (e.g., open and closed habitats; (c variations in the degree of eye movement between species appear associated with foraging strategies; and (d the size of the binocular and blind areas in hawks can vary substantially due to eye movements. Inter-specific variation in visual fields and eye movements can influence

  9. Hawk eyes I: diurnal raptors differ in visual fields and degree of eye movement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Rourke, Colleen T; Hall, Margaret I; Pitlik, Todd; Fernández-Juricic, Esteban

    2010-09-22

    Different strategies to search and detect prey may place specific demands on sensory modalities. We studied visual field configuration, degree of eye movement, and orbit orientation in three diurnal raptors belonging to the Accipitridae and Falconidae families. We used an ophthalmoscopic reflex technique and an integrated 3D digitizer system. We found inter-specific variation in visual field configuration and degree of eye movement, but not in orbit orientation. Red-tailed Hawks have relatively small binocular areas (∼33°) and wide blind areas (∼82°), but intermediate degree of eye movement (∼5°), which underscores the importance of lateral vision rather than binocular vision to scan for distant prey in open areas. Cooper's Hawks' have relatively wide binocular fields (∼36°), small blind areas (∼60°), and high degree of eye movement (∼8°), which may increase visual coverage and enhance prey detection in closed habitats. Additionally, we found that Cooper's Hawks can visually inspect the items held in the tip of the bill, which may facilitate food handling. American Kestrels have intermediate-sized binocular and lateral areas that may be used in prey detection at different distances through stereopsis and motion parallax; whereas the low degree eye movement (∼1°) may help stabilize the image when hovering above prey before an attack. We conclude that: (a) there are between-species differences in visual field configuration in these diurnal raptors; (b) these differences are consistent with prey searching strategies and degree of visual obstruction in the environment (e.g., open and closed habitats); (c) variations in the degree of eye movement between species appear associated with foraging strategies; and (d) the size of the binocular and blind areas in hawks can vary substantially due to eye movements. Inter-specific variation in visual fields and eye movements can influence behavioral strategies to visually search for and track prey while

  10. MODELLING SYNERGISTIC EYE MOVEMENTS IN THE VISUAL FIELD

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    BARITZ Mihaela

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Some theoretical and practical considerations about eye movements in visual field are presented in the first part of this paper. These movements are developed into human body to be synergistic and are allowed to obtain the visual perception in 3D space. The theoretical background of the eye movements’ analysis is founded on the establishment of movement equations of the eyeball, as they consider it a solid body with a fixed point. The exterior actions, the order and execution of the movements are ensured by the neural and muscular external system and thus the position, stability and movements of the eye can be quantified through the method of reverse kinematic. The purpose of these researches is the development of a simulation model of human binocular visual system, an acquisition methodology and an experimental setup for data processing and recording regarding the eye movements, presented in the second part of the paper. The modeling system of ocular movements aims to establish the binocular synergy and limits of visual field changes in condition of ocular motor dysfunctions. By biomechanical movements of eyeball is established a modeling strategy for different sort of processes parameters like convergence, fixation and eye lens accommodation to obtain responses from binocular balance. The results of modelling processes and the positions of eye ball and axis in visual field are presented in the final part of the paper.

  11. [Binocular coordination during reading].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bassou, L; Granié, M; Pugh, A K; Morucci, J P

    1992-01-01

    Is there an effect on binocular coordination during reading of oculomotor imbalance (heterophoria, strabismus and inadequate convergence) and of functional lateral characteristics (eye preference and perceptually privileged visual laterality)? Recordings of the binocular eye-movements of ten-year-old children show that oculomotor imbalances occur most often among children whose left visual perceptual channel is privileged, and that these subjects can present optomotor dissociation and manifest lack of motor coordination. Close binocular motor coordination is far from being the norm in reading. The faster reader displays saccades of differing spatial amplitude and the slower reader an oculomotor hyperactivity, especially during fixations. The recording of binocular movements in reading appears to be an excellent means of diagnosing difficulties related to visual laterality and to problems associated with oculomotor imbalance.

  12. A dual visual-local feedback model of the vergence eye movement system

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Erkelens, C.J.

    2011-01-01

    Pure vergence movements are the eye movements that we make when we change our binocular fixation between targets differing in distance but not in direction relative to the head. Pure vergence is slow and controlled by visual feedback. Saccades are the rapid eye movements that we make between targets

  13. Binocular eye movement control and motion perception: What is being tracked?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    J. van der Steen (Hans); J. Dits (Joyce)

    2012-01-01

    textabstractPURPOSE. We investigated under what conditions humans can make independent slow phase eye movements. The ability to make independent movements of the two eyes generally is attributed to few specialized lateral eyed animal species, for example chameleons. In our study, we showed that

  14. Reading strategies in mild to moderate strabismic amblyopia: an eye movement investigation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kanonidou, Evgenia; Proudlock, Frank A; Gottlob, Irene

    2010-07-01

    PURPOSE. To investigate oculomotor strategies in strabismic amblyopia and evaluate abnormalities during monocular and binocular reading. METHODS. Eye movements were recorded with a head-mounted infrared video eye-tracker (250 Hz, amblyopia, reading is impaired, not only during monocular viewing with the amblyopic eye, but also with the nonamblyopic eye and binocularly, even though normal visual acuity pertains to the latter two conditions. The impaired reading performance is associated with differences in both the saccadic and fixational patterns, most likely as adaptation strategies to abnormal sensory experiences such as crowding and suppression.

  15. Objective Evaluation of Visual Fatigue Using Binocular Fusion Maintenance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hirota, Masakazu; Morimoto, Takeshi; Kanda, Hiroyuki; Endo, Takao; Miyoshi, Tomomitsu; Miyagawa, Suguru; Hirohara, Yoko; Yamaguchi, Tatsuo; Saika, Makoto; Fujikado, Takashi

    2018-03-01

    In this study, we investigated whether an individual's visual fatigue can be evaluated objectively and quantitatively from their ability to maintain binocular fusion. Binocular fusion maintenance (BFM) was measured using a custom-made binocular open-view Shack-Hartmann wavefront aberrometer equipped with liquid crystal shutters, wherein eye movements and wavefront aberrations were measured simultaneously. Transmittance in the liquid crystal shutter in front of the subject's nondominant eye was reduced linearly, and BFM was determined from the transmittance at the point when binocular fusion was broken and vergence eye movement was induced. In total, 40 healthy subjects underwent the BFM test and completed a questionnaire regarding subjective symptoms before and after a visual task lasting 30 minutes. BFM was significantly reduced after the visual task ( P eye symptom score (adjusted R 2 = 0.752, P devices, such as head-mount display, objectively.

  16. Naturalistic depth perception and binocular vision

    OpenAIRE

    Maiello, G.

    2017-01-01

    Humans continuously move both their eyes to redirect their foveae to objects at new depths. To correctly execute these complex combinations of saccades, vergence eye movements and accommodation changes, the visual system makes use of multiple sources of depth information, including binocular disparity and defocus. Furthermore, during development, both fine-tuning of oculomotor control as well as correct eye growth are likely driven by complex interactions between eye movements, accommodation,...

  17. Exploring eye movements in patients with glaucoma when viewing a driving scene.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crabb, David P; Smith, Nicholas D; Rauscher, Franziska G; Chisholm, Catharine M; Barbur, John L; Edgar, David F; Garway-Heath, David F

    2010-03-16

    Glaucoma is a progressive eye disease and a leading cause of visual disability. Automated assessment of the visual field determines the different stages in the disease process: it would be desirable to link these measurements taken in the clinic with patient's actual function, or establish if patients compensate for their restricted field of view when performing everyday tasks. Hence, this study investigated eye movements in glaucomatous patients when viewing driving scenes in a hazard perception test (HPT). The HPT is a component of the UK driving licence test consisting of a series of short film clips of various traffic scenes viewed from the driver's perspective each containing hazardous situations that require the camera car to change direction or slow down. Data from nine glaucomatous patients with binocular visual field defects and ten age-matched control subjects were considered (all experienced drivers). Each subject viewed 26 different films with eye movements simultaneously monitored by an eye tracker. Computer software was purpose written to pre-process the data, co-register it to the film clips and to quantify eye movements and point-of-regard (using a dynamic bivariate contour ellipse analysis). On average, and across all HPT films, patients exhibited different eye movement characteristics to controls making, for example, significantly more saccades (P<0.001; 95% confidence interval for mean increase: 9.2 to 22.4%). Whilst the average region of 'point-of-regard' of the patients did not differ significantly from the controls, there were revealing cases where patients failed to see a hazard in relation to their binocular visual field defect. Characteristics of eye movement patterns in patients with bilateral glaucoma can differ significantly from age-matched controls when viewing a traffic scene. Further studies of eye movements made by glaucomatous patients could provide useful information about the definition of the visual field component required for

  18. Binocular combination in abnormal binocular vision.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ding, Jian; Klein, Stanley A; Levi, Dennis M

    2013-02-08

    We investigated suprathreshold binocular combination in humans with abnormal binocular visual experience early in life. In the first experiment we presented the two eyes with equal but opposite phase shifted sine waves and measured the perceived phase of the cyclopean sine wave. Normal observers have balanced vision between the two eyes when the two eyes' images have equal contrast (i.e., both eyes contribute equally to the perceived image and perceived phase = 0°). However, in observers with strabismus and/or amblyopia, balanced vision requires a higher contrast image in the nondominant eye (NDE) than the dominant eye (DE). This asymmetry between the two eyes is larger than predicted from the contrast sensitivities or monocular perceived contrast of the two eyes and is dependent on contrast and spatial frequency: more asymmetric with higher contrast and/or spatial frequency. Our results also revealed a surprising NDE-to-DE enhancement in some of our abnormal observers. This enhancement is not evident in normal vision because it is normally masked by interocular suppression. However, in these abnormal observers the NDE-to-DE suppression was weak or absent. In the second experiment, we used the identical stimuli to measure the perceived contrast of a cyclopean grating by matching the binocular combined contrast to a standard contrast presented to the DE. These measures provide strong constraints for model fitting. We found asymmetric interocular interactions in binocular contrast perception, which was dependent on both contrast and spatial frequency in the same way as in phase perception. By introducing asymmetric parameters to the modified Ding-Sperling model including interocular contrast gain enhancement, we succeeded in accounting for both binocular combined phase and contrast simultaneously. Adding binocular contrast gain control to the modified Ding-Sperling model enabled us to predict the results of dichoptic and binocular contrast discrimination experiments

  19. Towards free 3D end-point control for robotic-assisted human reaching using binocular eye tracking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maimon-Dror, Roni O; Fernandez-Quesada, Jorge; Zito, Giuseppe A; Konnaris, Charalambos; Dziemian, Sabine; Faisal, A Aldo

    2017-07-01

    Eye-movements are the only directly observable behavioural signals that are highly correlated with actions at the task level, and proactive of body movements and thus reflect action intentions. Moreover, eye movements are preserved in many movement disorders leading to paralysis (or amputees) from stroke, spinal cord injury, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and muscular dystrophy among others. Despite this benefit, eye tracking is not widely used as control interface for robotic interfaces in movement impaired patients due to poor human-robot interfaces. We demonstrate here how combining 3D gaze tracking using our GT3D binocular eye tracker with custom designed 3D head tracking system and calibration method enables continuous 3D end-point control of a robotic arm support system. The users can move their own hand to any location of the workspace by simple looking at the target and winking once. This purely eye tracking based system enables the end-user to retain free head movement and yet achieves high spatial end point accuracy in the order of 6 cm RMSE error in each dimension and standard deviation of 4 cm. 3D calibration is achieved by moving the robot along a 3 dimensional space filling Peano curve while the user is tracking it with their eyes. This results in a fully automated calibration procedure that yields several thousand calibration points versus standard approaches using a dozen points, resulting in beyond state-of-the-art 3D accuracy and precision.

  20. Exploring eye movements in patients with glaucoma when viewing a driving scene.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David P Crabb

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Glaucoma is a progressive eye disease and a leading cause of visual disability. Automated assessment of the visual field determines the different stages in the disease process: it would be desirable to link these measurements taken in the clinic with patient's actual function, or establish if patients compensate for their restricted field of view when performing everyday tasks. Hence, this study investigated eye movements in glaucomatous patients when viewing driving scenes in a hazard perception test (HPT. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The HPT is a component of the UK driving licence test consisting of a series of short film clips of various traffic scenes viewed from the driver's perspective each containing hazardous situations that require the camera car to change direction or slow down. Data from nine glaucomatous patients with binocular visual field defects and ten age-matched control subjects were considered (all experienced drivers. Each subject viewed 26 different films with eye movements simultaneously monitored by an eye tracker. Computer software was purpose written to pre-process the data, co-register it to the film clips and to quantify eye movements and point-of-regard (using a dynamic bivariate contour ellipse analysis. On average, and across all HPT films, patients exhibited different eye movement characteristics to controls making, for example, significantly more saccades (P<0.001; 95% confidence interval for mean increase: 9.2 to 22.4%. Whilst the average region of 'point-of-regard' of the patients did not differ significantly from the controls, there were revealing cases where patients failed to see a hazard in relation to their binocular visual field defect. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Characteristics of eye movement patterns in patients with bilateral glaucoma can differ significantly from age-matched controls when viewing a traffic scene. Further studies of eye movements made by glaucomatous patients could

  1. Corneal Transplantation in Disease Affecting Only One Eye: Does It Make a Difference to Habitual Binocular Viewing?

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    Praveen K Bandela

    Full Text Available Clarity of the transplanted tissue and restoration of visual acuity are the two primary metrics for evaluating the success of corneal transplantation. Participation of the transplanted eye in habitual binocular viewing is seldom evaluated post-operatively. In unilateral corneal disease, the transplanted eye may remain functionally inactive during binocular viewing due to its suboptimal visual acuity and poor image quality, vis-à-vis the healthy fellow eye.This study prospectively quantified the contribution of the transplanted eye towards habitual binocular viewing in 25 cases with unilateral transplants [40 yrs (IQR: 32-42 yrs and 25 age-matched controls [30 yrs (25-37 yrs]. Binocular functions including visual field extent, high-contrast logMAR acuity, suppression threshold and stereoacuity were assessed using standard psychophysical paradigms. Optical quality of all eyes was determined from wavefront aberrometry measurements. Binocular visual field expanded by a median 21% (IQR: 18-29% compared to the monocular field of cases and controls (p = 0.63. Binocular logMAR acuity [0.0 (0.0-0.0] almost always followed the fellow eye's acuity [0.00 (0.00 --0.02] (r = 0.82, independent of the transplanted eye's acuity [0.34 (0.2-0.5] (r = 0.04. Suppression threshold and stereoacuity were poorer in cases [30.1% (13.5-44.3%; 620.8 arc sec (370.3-988.2 arc sec] than in controls [79% (63.5-100%; 16.3 arc sec (10.6-25.5 arc sec] (p<0.001. Higher-order wavefront aberrations of the transplanted eye [0.34 μ (0.21-0.51 μ] were higher than the fellow eye [0.07 μ (0.05-0.11 μ] (p<0.001 and their reduction with RGP contact lenses [0.09 μ (0.08-0.12 μ] significantly improved the suppression threshold [65% (50-72%] and stereoacuity [56.6 arc sec (47.7-181.6 arc sec] (p<0.001.In unilateral corneal disease, the transplanted eye does participate in gross binocular viewing but offers limited support to fine levels of binocularity. Improvement in the transplanted

  2. Binocular summation and other forms of non-dominant eye contribution in individuals with strabismic amblyopia during habitual viewing.

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    Brendan T Barrett

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Adults with amblyopia ('lazy eye', long-standing strabismus (ocular misalignment or both typically do not experience visual symptoms because the signal from weaker eye is given less weight than the signal from its fellow. Here we examine the contribution of the weaker eye of individuals with strabismus and amblyopia with both eyes open and with the deviating eye in its anomalous motor position. METHODOLOGY/RESULTS: The task consisted of a blue-on-yellow detection task along a horizontal line across the central 50 degrees of the visual field. We compare the results obtained in ten individuals with strabismic amblyopia with ten visual normals. At each field location in each participant, we examined how the sensitivity exhibited under binocular conditions compared with sensitivity from four predictions, (i a model of binocular summation, (ii the average of the monocular sensitivities, (iii dominant-eye sensitivity or (iv non-dominant-eye sensitivity. The proportion of field locations for which the binocular summation model provided the best description of binocular sensitivity was similar in normals (50.6% and amblyopes (48.2%. Average monocular sensitivity matched binocular sensitivity in 14.1% of amblyopes' field locations compared to 8.8% of normals'. Dominant-eye sensitivity explained sensitivity at 27.1% of field locations in amblyopes but 21.2% in normals. Non-dominant-eye sensitivity explained sensitivity at 10.6% of field locations in amblyopes but 19.4% in normals. Binocular summation provided the best description of the sensitivity profile in 6/10 amblyopes compared to 7/10 of normals. In three amblyopes, dominant-eye sensitivity most closely reflected binocular sensitivity (compared to two normals and in the remaining amblyope, binocular sensitivity approximated to an average of the monocular sensitivities. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest a strong positive contribution in habitual viewing from the non-dominant eye in

  3. Two eyes, one vision: binocular motion perception in human visual cortex

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Barendregt, M.

    2016-01-01

    An important aspect of human vision is the fact that it is binocular, i.e. that we have two eyes. As a result, the brain nearly always receives two slightly different images of the same visual scene. Yet, we only perceive a single image and thus our brain has to actively combine the binocular visual

  4. Improved Binocular Outcomes Following Binocular Treatment for Childhood Amblyopia.

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    Kelly, Krista R; Jost, Reed M; Wang, Yi-Zhong; Dao, Lori; Beauchamp, Cynthia L; Leffler, Joel N; Birch, Eileen E

    2018-03-01

    Childhood amblyopia can be treated with binocular games or movies that rebalance contrast between the eyes, which is thought to reduce depth of interocular suppression so the child can experience binocular vision. While visual acuity gains have been reported following binocular treatment, studies rarely report gains in binocular outcomes (i.e., stereoacuity, suppression) in amblyopic children. Here, we evaluated binocular outcomes in children who had received binocular treatment for childhood amblyopia. Data for amblyopic children enrolled in two ongoing studies were pooled. The sample included 41 amblyopic children (6 strabismic, 21 anisometropic, 14 combined; age 4-10 years; ≤4 prism diopters [PD]) who received binocular treatment (20 game, 21 movies; prescribed 9-10 hours treatment). Amblyopic eye visual acuity and binocular outcomes (Randot Preschool Stereoacuity, extent of suppression, and depth of suppression) were assessed at baseline and at 2 weeks. Mean amblyopic eye visual acuity (P suppression (P = 0.003) were reduced from baseline at the 2-week visit (87% game adherence, 100% movie adherence). Depth of suppression was reduced more in children aged suppression was correlated with a larger depth of suppression reduction at 2 weeks (P = 0.001). After 2 weeks, binocular treatment in amblyopic children improved visual acuity and binocular outcomes, reducing the extent and depth of suppression and improving stereoacuity. Binocular treatments that rebalance contrast to overcome suppression are a promising additional option for treating amblyopia.

  5. Driving with binocular visual field loss? A study on a supervised on-road parcours with simultaneous eye and head tracking.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Enkelejda Kasneci

    Full Text Available Post-chiasmal visual pathway lesions and glaucomatous optic neuropathy cause binocular visual field defects (VFDs that may critically interfere with quality of life and driving licensure. The aims of this study were (i to assess the on-road driving performance of patients suffering from binocular visual field loss using a dual-brake vehicle, and (ii to investigate the related compensatory mechanisms. A driving instructor, blinded to the participants' diagnosis, rated the driving performance (passed/failed of ten patients with homonymous visual field defects (HP, including four patients with right (HR and six patients with left homonymous visual field defects (HL, ten glaucoma patients (GP, and twenty age and gender-related ophthalmologically healthy control subjects (C during a 40-minute driving task on a pre-specified public on-road parcours. In order to investigate the subjects' visual exploration ability, eye movements were recorded by means of a mobile eye tracker. Two additional cameras were used to monitor the driving scene and record head and shoulder movements. Thus this study is novel as a quantitative assessment of eye movements and an additional evaluation of head and shoulder was performed. Six out of ten HP and four out of ten GP were rated as fit to drive by the driving instructor, despite their binocular visual field loss. Three out of 20 control subjects failed the on-road assessment. The extent of the visual field defect was of minor importance with regard to the driving performance. The site of the homonymous visual field defect (HVFD critically interfered with the driving ability: all failed HP subjects suffered from left homonymous visual field loss (HL due to right hemispheric lesions. Patients who failed the driving assessment had mainly difficulties with lane keeping and gap judgment ability. Patients who passed the test displayed different exploration patterns than those who failed. Patients who passed focused longer on

  6. Early Studies of Binocular and Binaural Directions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicholas J. Wade

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Understanding how the eyes work together to determine the direction of objects provided the impetus for examining integration of signals from the ears to locate sounds. However, the advantages of having two eyes were recorded long before those for two ears were appreciated. In part, this reflects the marked differences in how we can compare perception with one or two organs. It is easier to close one eye and examine monocular vision than to “close” one ear and study monaural hearing. Moreover, we can move our eyes either in the same or in opposite directions, but humans have no equivalent means of moving the ears in unison. Studies of binocular single vision can be traced back over two thousand years and they were implicitly concerned with visual directions from each eye. The location of any point in visual or auditory space can be described by specifying its direction and distance, from the vantage point of an observer. From the late 18th century experiments indicated that binocular direction involved an eye movement component and experimental studies of binaural direction commenced slightly later. However, these early binocular and binaural experiments were not incorporated into theoretical accounts until almost a century later. The early history of research on visual direction with two eyes is contrasted to that on auditory direction with two ears.

  7. Rebalancing binocular vision in amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ding, Jian; Levi, Dennis M

    2014-03-01

    Humans with amblyopia have an asymmetry in binocular vision: neural signals from the amblyopic eye are suppressed in the cortex by the fellow eye. The purpose of this study was to develop new models and methods for rebalancing this asymmetric binocular vision by manipulating the contrast and luminance in the two eyes. We measured the perceived phase of a cyclopean sinewave by asking normal and amblyopic observers to indicate the apparent location (phase) of the dark trough in the horizontal cyclopean sine wave relative to a black horizontal reference line, and used the same stimuli to measure perceived contrast by matching the binocular combined contrast to a standard contrast presented to one eye. We varied both the relative contrast and luminance of the two eyes' inputs, in order to rebalance the asymmetric binocular vision. Amblyopic binocular vision becomes more and more asymmetric the higher the stimulus contrast or spatial frequency. Reanalysing our previous data, we found that, at a given spatial frequency, the binocular asymmetry could be described by a log-linear formula with two parameters, one for the maximum asymmetry and one for the rate at which the binocular system becomes asymmetric as the contrast increases. Our new data demonstrates that reducing the dominant eye's mean luminance reduces its suppression of the non-dominant eye, and therefore rebalances the asymmetric binocular vision. While the binocular asymmetry in amblyopic vision can be rebalanced by manipulating the relative contrast or luminance of the two eyes at a given spatial frequency and contrast, it is very difficult or even impossible to rebalance the asymmetry for all visual conditions. Nonetheless, wearing a neutral density filter before the dominant eye (or increasing the mean luminance in the non-dominant eye) may be more beneficial than the traditional method of patching the dominant eye for treating amblyopia. © 2014 The Authors Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics © 2014 The

  8. Restoration of binocular vision in amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hess, R F; Mansouri, B; Thompson, B

    2011-09-01

    To develop a treatment for amblyopia based on re-establishing binocular vision. A novel procedure is outlined for measuring and reducing the extent to which the fixing eye suppresses the fellow amblyopic eye in adults with amblyopia. We hypothesize that suppression renders a structurally binocular system, functionally monocular. We demonstrate that strabismic amblyopes can combine information normally between their eyes under viewing conditions where suppression is reduced by presenting stimuli of different contrast to each eye. Furthermore we show that prolonged periods of binocular combination leads to a strengthening of binocular vision in strabismic amblyopes and eventual combination of binocular information under natural viewing conditions (stimuli of the same contrast in each eye). Concomitant improvement in monocular acuity of the amblyopic eye occurs with this reduction in suppression and strengthening of binocular fusion. Additionally, stereoscopic function was established in the majority of patients tested. We have implemented this approach on a headmounted device as well as on a handheld iPod. This provides the basis for a new treatment of amblyopia, one that is purely binocular and aimed at reducing suppression as a first step.

  9. An eye movement study for identification of suitable font characters for presentation on a computer screen.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Banerjee, Jayeeta; Majumdar, Dhurjati; Majumdar, Deepti; Pal, Madhu Sudan

    2010-06-01

    We are experiencing a shifting of media: from the printed paper to the computer screen. This transition is modifying the process of how we read and understand a text. It is very difficult to conclude on suitability of font characters based upon subjective evaluation method only. Present study evaluates the effect of font type on human cognitive workload during perception of individual alphabets on a computer screen. Twenty six young subjects volunteered for this study. Here, subjects have been shown individual characters of different font types and their eye movements have been recorded. A binocular eye movement recorder was used for eye movement recording. The results showed that different eye movement parameters such as pupil diameter, number of fixations, fixation duration were less for font type Verdana. The present study recommends the use of font type Verdana for presentation of individual alphabets on various electronic displays in order to reduce cognitive workload.

  10. Measurement of suprathreshold binocular interactions in amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mansouri, B; Thompson, B; Hess, R F

    2008-12-01

    It has been established that in amblyopia, information from the amblyopic eye (AME) is not combined with that from the fellow fixing eye (FFE) under conditions of binocular viewing. However, recent evidence suggests that mechanisms that combine information between the eyes are intact in amblyopia. The lack of binocular function is most likely due to the imbalanced inputs from the two eyes under binocular conditions [Baker, D. H., Meese, T. S., Mansouri, B., & Hess, R. F. (2007b). Binocular summation of contrast remains intact in strabismic amblyopia. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 48(11), 5332-5338]. We have measured the extent to which the information presented to each eye needs to differ for binocular combination to occur and in doing so we quantify the influence of interocular suppression. We quantify these suppressive effects for suprathreshold processing of global stimuli for both motion and spatial tasks. The results confirm the general importance of these suppressive effects in rendering the structurally binocular visual system of a strabismic amblyope, functionally monocular.

  11. Eye Movement Disorders

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... work properly. There are many kinds of eye movement disorders. Two common ones are Strabismus - a disorder ... in "crossed eyes" or "walleye." Nystagmus - fast, uncontrollable movements of the eyes, sometimes called "dancing eyes" Some ...

  12. A binocular approach to treating amblyopia: antisuppression therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hess, Robert F; Mansouri, Behzad; Thompson, Benjamin

    2010-09-01

    We developed a binocular treatment for amblyopia based on antisuppression therapy. A novel procedure is outlined for measuring the extent to which the fixing eye suppresses the fellow amblyopic eye. We hypothesize that suppression renders a structurally binocular system, functionally monocular. We demonstrate using three strabismic amblyopes that information can be combined normally between their eyes under viewing conditions where suppression is reduced. Also, we show that prolonged periods of viewing (under the artificial conditions of stimuli of different contrast in each eye) during which information from the two eyes is combined leads to a strengthening of binocular vision in such cases and eventual combination of binocular information under natural viewing conditions (stimuli of the same contrast in each eye). Concomitant improvement in monocular acuity of the amblyopic eye occurs with this reduction in suppression and strengthening of binocular fusion. Furthermore, in each of the three cases, stereoscopic function is established. This provides the basis for a new treatment of amblyopia, one that is purely binocular and aimed at reducing suppression as a first step.

  13. Directional asymmetries in human smooth pursuit eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ke, Sally R; Lam, Jessica; Pai, Dinesh K; Spering, Miriam

    2013-06-27

    Humans make smooth pursuit eye movements to bring the image of a moving object onto the fovea. Although pursuit accuracy is critical to prevent motion blur, the eye often falls behind the target. Previous studies suggest that pursuit accuracy differs between motion directions. Here, we systematically assess asymmetries in smooth pursuit. In experiment 1, binocular eye movements were recorded while observers (n = 20) tracked a small spot of light moving along one of four cardinal or diagonal axes across a featureless background. We analyzed pursuit latency, acceleration, peak velocity, gain, and catch-up saccade latency, number, and amplitude. In experiment 2 (n = 22), we examined the effects of spatial location and constrained stimulus motion within the upper or lower visual field. Pursuit was significantly faster (higher acceleration, peak velocity, and gain) and smoother (fewer and later catch-up saccades) in response to downward versus upward motion in both the upper and the lower visual fields. Pursuit was also more accurate and smoother in response to horizontal versus vertical motion. CONCLUSIONS. Our study is the first to report a consistent up-down asymmetry in human adults, regardless of visual field. Our findings suggest that pursuit asymmetries are adaptive responses to the requirements of the visual context: preferred motion directions (horizontal and downward) are more critical to our survival than nonpreferred ones.

  14. Degeneration of rapid eye movement sleep circuitry underlies rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McKenna, Dillon; Peever, John

    2017-05-01

    During healthy rapid eye movement sleep, skeletal muscles are actively forced into a state of motor paralysis. However, in rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder-a relatively common neurological disorder-this natural process is lost. A lack of motor paralysis (atonia) in rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder allows individuals to actively move, which at times can be excessive and violent. At first glance this may sound harmless, but it is not because rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder patients frequently injure themselves or the person they sleep with. It is hypothesized that the degeneration or dysfunction of the brain stem circuits that control rapid eye movement sleep paralysis is an underlying cause of rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder. The link between brain stem degeneration and rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder stems from the fact that rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder precedes, in the majority (∼80%) of cases, the development of synucleinopathies such as Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, and multiple system atrophy, which are known to initially cause degeneration in the caudal brain stem structures where rapid eye movement sleep circuits are located. Furthermore, basic science and clinical evidence demonstrate that lesions within the rapid eye movement sleep circuits can induce rapid eye movement sleep-specific motor deficits that are virtually identical to those observed in rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder. This review examines the evidence that rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder is caused by synucleinopathic neurodegeneration of the core brain stem circuits that control healthy rapid eye movement sleep and concludes that rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder is not a separate clinical entity from synucleinopathies but, rather, it is the earliest symptom of these disorders. © 2017 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society. © 2017 International Parkinson and

  15. Binocular astronomy

    CERN Document Server

    Tonkin, Stephen

    2014-01-01

    Binoculars have, for many, long been regarded as an “entry level” observational tool, and relatively few have used them as a serious observing instrument. This is changing! Many people appreciate the relative comfort of two-eyed observing, but those who use binoculars come to realize that they offer more than comfort. The view of the stars is more aesthetically pleasing and therefore binocular observers tend to observe more frequently and for longer periods. Binocular Astronomy, 2nd Edition, extends its coverage of small and medium binoculars to large and giant (i.e., up to 300mm aperture) binoculars and also binoviewers, which brings the work into the realm of serious observing instruments. Additionally, it goes far deeper into the varying optical characteristics of binoculars, giving newcomers and advanced astronomers the information needed to make informed choices on purchasing a pair. It also covers relevant aspects of the physiology of binocular (as in “both eyes”) observation. The first edition ...

  16. Short-term saccadic adaptation in the macaque monkey: a binocular mechanism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schultz, K. P.

    2013-01-01

    Saccadic eye movements are rapid transfers of gaze between objects of interest. Their duration is too short for the visual system to be able to follow their progress in time. Adaptive mechanisms constantly recalibrate the saccadic responses by detecting how close the landings are to the selected targets. The double-step saccadic paradigm is a common method to simulate alterations in saccadic gain. While the subject is responding to a first target shift, a second shift is introduced in the middle of this movement, which masks it from visual detection. The error in landing introduced by the second shift is interpreted by the brain as an error in the programming of the initial response, with gradual gain changes aimed at compensating the apparent sensorimotor mismatch. A second shift applied dichoptically to only one eye introduces disconjugate landing errors between the two eyes. A monocular adaptive system would independently modify only the gain of the eye exposed to the second shift in order to reestablish binocular alignment. Our results support a binocular mechanism. A version-based saccadic adaptive process detects postsaccadic version errors and generates compensatory conjugate gain alterations. A vergence-based saccadic adaptive process detects postsaccadic disparity errors and generates corrective nonvisual disparity signals that are sent to the vergence system to regain binocularity. This results in striking dynamical similarities between visually driven combined saccade-vergence gaze transfers, where the disparity is given by the visual targets, and the double-step adaptive disconjugate responses, where an adaptive disparity signal is generated internally by the saccadic system. PMID:23076111

  17. Effects of strabismic amblyopia and strabismus without amblyopia on visuomotor behavior, I: saccadic eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Niechwiej-Szwedo, Ewa; Chandrakumar, Manokaraananthan; Goltz, Herbert C; Wong, Agnes M F

    2012-11-01

    It has previously been shown that anisometropic amblyopia affects the programming and execution of saccades. The aim of the current study was to investigate the impact of strabismic amblyopia on saccade performance. Fourteen adults with strabismic amblyopia, 13 adults with strabismus without amblyopia, and 14 visually normal adults performed saccades and reach-to-touch movements to targets presented at ± 5° and ± 10° eccentricity during binocular and monocular viewing. Latency, amplitude, and peak velocity of primary and secondary saccades were measured. In contrast to visually normal participants who had shorter primary saccade latency during binocular viewing, no binocular advantage was found in patients with strabismus with or without amblyopia. Patients with amblyopia had longer saccade latency during amblyopic eye viewing (P amblyopia and no stereopsis (n = 4) exhibited longer latency (which was more pronounced for more central targets; P amblyopia (n = 5) and no stereopsis had normal latency and reduced precision during amblyopic eye viewing (P amblyopia were found. These findings were in contrast to those in anisometropic amblyopia in which the altered saccade performance was independent of the extent of visual acuity or stereoscopic deficits. These results were most likely due to different long-term sensory suppression mechanisms in strabismic versus anisometropic amblyopia.

  18. Spatial-frequency dependent binocular imbalance in amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kwon, MiYoung; Wiecek, Emily; Dakin, Steven C; Bex, Peter J

    2015-11-25

    While amblyopia involves both binocular imbalance and deficits in processing high spatial frequency information, little is known about the spatial-frequency dependence of binocular imbalance. Here we examined binocular imbalance as a function of spatial frequency in amblyopia using a novel computer-based method. Binocular imbalance at four spatial frequencies was measured with a novel dichoptic letter chart in individuals with amblyopia, or normal vision. Our dichoptic letter chart was composed of band-pass filtered letters arranged in a layout similar to the ETDRS acuity chart. A different chart was presented to each eye of the observer via stereo-shutter glasses. The relative contrast of the corresponding letter in each eye was adjusted by a computer staircase to determine a binocular Balance Point at which the observer reports the letter presented to either eye with equal probability. Amblyopes showed pronounced binocular imbalance across all spatial frequencies, with greater imbalance at high compared to low spatial frequencies (an average increase of 19%, p imbalance may be useful for diagnosing amblyopia and as an outcome measure for recovery of binocular vision following therapy.

  19. Latent binocular function in amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chadnova, Eva; Reynaud, Alexandre; Clavagnier, Simon; Hess, Robert F

    2017-11-01

    Recently, psychophysical studies have shown that humans with amblyopia do have binocular function that is not normally revealed due to dominant suppressive interactions under normal viewing conditions. Here we use magnetoencephalography (MEG) combined with dichoptic visual stimulation to investigate the underlying binocular function in humans with amblyopia for stimuli that, because of their temporal properties, would be expected to bypass suppressive effects and to reveal any underlying binocular function. We recorded contrast response functions in visual cortical area V1 of amblyopes and normal observers using a steady state visually evoked responses (SSVER) protocol. We used stimuli that were frequency-tagged at 4Hz and 6Hz that allowed identification of the responses from each eye and were of a sufficiently high temporal frequency (>3Hz) to bypass suppression. To characterize binocular function, we compared dichoptic masking between the two eyes in normal and amblyopic participants as well as interocular phase differences in the two groups. We observed that the primary visual cortex responds less to the stimulation of the amblyopic eye compared to the fellow eye. The pattern of interaction in the amblyopic visual system however was not significantly different between the amblyopic and fellow eyes. However, the amblyopic suppressive interactions were lower than those observed in the binocular system of our normal observers. Furthermore, we identified an interocular processing delay of approximately 20ms in our amblyopic group. To conclude, when suppression is greatly reduced, such as the case with our stimulation above 3Hz, the amblyopic visual system exhibits a lack of binocular interactions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. Eye movement perimetry in glaucoma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Trope, G E; Eizenman, M; Coyle, E

    1989-08-01

    Present-day computerized perimetry is often inaccurate and unreliable owing to the need to maintain central fixation over long periods while repressing the normal response to presentation of peripheral stimuli. We tested a new method of perimetry that does not require prolonged central fixation. During this test eye movements were encouraged on presentation of a peripheral target. Twenty-three eyes were studied with an Octopus perimeter, with a technician monitoring eye movements. The sensitivity was 100% and the specificity 23%. The low specificity was due to the technician's inability to accurately monitor small eye movements in the central 6 degrees field. If small eye movements are monitored accurately with an eye tracker, eye movement perimetry could become an alternative method to standard perimetry.

  1. Amblyopia and the binocular approach to its therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hess, Robert F; Thompson, Benjamin

    2015-09-01

    There is growing evidence that abnormal binocular interactions play a key role in amblyopia. In particular, stronger suppression of the amblyopic eye has been associated with poorer amblyopic eye visual acuity and a new therapy has been described that directly targets binocular function and has been found to improve both monocular and binocular vision in adults and children with amblyopia. Furthermore, non-invasive brain stimulation techniques that alter excitation and inhibition within the visual cortex have been shown to improve vision in the amblyopic eye. The aim of this review is to summarize this previous work and interpret the therapeutic effects of binocular therapy and non-invasive brain stimulation in the context of three potential neural mechanisms; active inhibition of signals from the amblyopic eye, attenuation of information from the amblyopic eye and metaplasticity of synaptic long term potentiation and long term depression. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  2. Eye-movements and ongoing task processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burke, David T; Meleger, Alec; Schneider, Jeffrey C; Snyder, Jim; Dorvlo, Atsu S S; Al-Adawi, Samir

    2003-06-01

    This study tests the relation between eye-movements and thought processing. Subjects were given specific modality tasks (visual, gustatory, kinesthetic) and assessed on whether they responded with distinct eye-movements. Some subjects' eye-movements reflected ongoing thought processing. Instead of a universal pattern, as suggested by the neurolinguistic programming hypothesis, this study yielded subject-specific idiosyncratic eye-movements across all modalities. Included is a discussion of the neurolinguistic programming hypothesis regarding eye-movements and its implications for the eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing theory.

  3. Binocular Rivalry Measured 2 Hours After Occlusion Therapy Predicts the Recovery Rate of the Amblyopic Eye in Anisometropic Children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lunghi, Claudia; Morrone, Maria Concetta; Secci, Jacopo; Caputo, Roberto

    2016-04-01

    Recent studies on adults have shown that short-term monocular deprivation boosts the deprived eye signal in binocular rivalry, reflecting homeostatic plasticity. Here we investigate whether homeostatic plasticity is present also during occlusion therapy for moderate amblyopia. Binocular rivalry and visual acuity (using Snellen charts for children) were measured in 10 children (mean age 6.2 ± 1 years) with moderate anisometropic amblyopia before the beginning of treatment and at four intervals during occlusion therapy (2 hours, 1, 2, and 5 months). Visual stimuli were orthogonal gratings presented dichoptically through ferromagnetic goggles and children reported verbally visual rivalrous perception. Bangerter filters were applied on the spectacle lens over the best eye for occlusion therapy. Two hours of occlusion therapy increased the nonamblyopic eye predominance over the amblyopic eye compared with pretreatment measurements, consistent with the results in adults. The boost of the nonamblyopic eye was still present after 1 month of treatment, steadily decreasing afterward to reach pretreatment levels after 2 months of continuous occlusion. Across subjects, the increase in nonamblyopic eye predominance observed after 2 hours of occlusion correlated (rho = -0.65, P = 0.04) with the visual acuity improvement of the amblyopic eye measured after 2 months of treatment. Homeostatic plasticity operates during occlusion therapy for moderate amblyopia and the increase in nonamblyopic eye dominance observed at the beginning of treatment correlates with the amblyopic eye recovery rate. These results suggest that binocular rivalry might be used to monitor visual cortical plasticity during occlusion therapy, although further investigations on larger clinical populations are needed to validate the predictive power of the technique.

  4. Viewing geometry determines the contribution of binocular vision to the online control of grasping.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keefe, Bruce D; Watt, Simon J

    2017-12-01

    Binocular vision is often assumed to make a specific, critical contribution to online visual control of grasping by providing precise information about the separation between digits and object. This account overlooks the 'viewing geometry' typically encountered in grasping, however. Separation of hand and object is rarely aligned precisely with the line of sight (the visual depth dimension), and analysis of the raw signals suggests that, for most other viewing angles, binocular feedback is less precise than monocular feedback. Thus, online grasp control relying selectively on binocular feedback would not be robust to natural changes in viewing geometry. Alternatively, sensory integration theory suggests that different signals contribute according to their relative precision, in which case the role of binocular feedback should depend on viewing geometry, rather than being 'hard-wired'. We manipulated viewing geometry, and assessed the role of binocular feedback by measuring the effects on grasping of occluding one eye at movement onset. Loss of binocular feedback resulted in a significantly less extended final slow-movement phase when hand and object were separated primarily in the frontoparallel plane (where binocular information is relatively imprecise), compared to when they were separated primarily along the line of sight (where binocular information is relatively precise). Consistent with sensory integration theory, this suggests the role of binocular (and monocular) vision in online grasp control is not a fixed, 'architectural' property of the visuo-motor system, but arises instead from the interaction of viewer and situation, allowing robust online control across natural variations in viewing geometry.

  5. Binocular Combination of Second-Order Stimuli

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Jiawei; Liu, Rong; Zhou, Yifeng; Hess, Robert F.

    2014-01-01

    Phase information is a fundamental aspect of visual stimuli. However, the nature of the binocular combination of stimuli defined by modulations in contrast, so-called second-order stimuli, is presently not clear. To address this issue, we measured binocular combination for first- (luminance modulated) and second-order (contrast modulated) stimuli using a binocular phase combination paradigm in seven normal adults. We found that the binocular perceived phase of second-order gratings depends on the interocular signal ratio as has been previously shown for their first order counterparts; the interocular signal ratios when the two eyes were balanced was close to 1 in both first- and second-order phase combinations. However, second-order combination is more linear than previously found for first-order combination. Furthermore, binocular combination of second-order stimuli was similar regardless of whether the carriers in the two eyes were correlated, anti-correlated, or uncorrelated. This suggests that, in normal adults, the binocular phase combination of second-order stimuli occurs after the monocular extracting of the second-order modulations. The sensory balance associated with this second-order combination can be obtained from binocular phase combination measurements. PMID:24404180

  6. On Biometrics With Eye Movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Youming; Juhola, Martti

    2017-09-01

    Eye movements are a relatively novel data source for biometric identification. When video cameras applied to eye tracking become smaller and more efficient, this data source could offer interesting opportunities for the development of eye movement biometrics. In this paper, we study primarily biometric identification as seen as a classification task of multiple classes, and secondarily biometric verification considered as binary classification. Our research is based on the saccadic eye movement signal measurements from 109 young subjects. In order to test the data measured, we use a procedure of biometric identification according to the one-versus-one (subject) principle. In a development from our previous research, which also involved biometric verification based on saccadic eye movements, we now apply another eye movement tracker device with a higher sampling frequency of 250 Hz. The results obtained are good, with correct identification rates at 80-90% at their best.

  7. Threat perception in the chameleon (Chamaeleo chameleon): evidence for lateralized eye use.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lustig, Avichai; Keter-Katz, Hadas; Katzir, Gadi

    2012-07-01

    Chameleons are arboreal lizards with highly independent, large amplitude eye movements. In response to an approaching threat, a chameleon on a vertical pole moves so as to keep itself away from the threat. In so doing, it shifts between monocular and binocular scanning of the threat and of the environment. We analyzed eye movements in the Common chameleon, Chamaeleo chameleon, during avoidance response for lateralization, that is, asymmetry at the functional/behavioral levels. The chameleons were exposed to a threat, approaching horizontally from clockwise or anti-clockwise directions, and that could be viewed monocularly or binocularly. Our results show three broad patterns of eye use, as determined by durations spent viewing the threat and by frequency of eye shifts. Under binocular viewing, two of the patterns were found to be both side dependent, that is, lateralized and role dependent ("leading" or "following"). However, under monocular viewing, no such lateralization was detected. We discuss these findings in light of the situation not uncommon in vertebrates, of independent eye movements and a high degree of optic nerve decussation and that lateralization may well occur in organisms that are regularly exposed to critical stimuli from all spatial directions. We point to the need of further investigating lateralization at fine behavioral levels.

  8. Evaluation of the Tobii EyeX Eye tracking controller and Matlab toolkit for research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gibaldi, Agostino; Vanegas, Mauricio; Bex, Peter J; Maiello, Guido

    2017-06-01

    The Tobii Eyex Controller is a new low-cost binocular eye tracker marketed for integration in gaming and consumer applications. The manufacturers claim that the system was conceived for natural eye gaze interaction, does not require continuous recalibration, and allows moderate head movements. The Controller is provided with a SDK to foster the development of new eye tracking applications. We review the characteristics of the device for its possible use in scientific research. We develop and evaluate an open source Matlab Toolkit that can be employed to interface with the EyeX device for gaze recording in behavioral experiments. The Toolkit provides calibration procedures tailored to both binocular and monocular experiments, as well as procedures to evaluate other eye tracking devices. The observed performance of the EyeX (i.e. accuracy < 0.6°, precision < 0.25°, latency < 50 ms and sampling frequency ≈55 Hz), is sufficient for some classes of research application. The device can be successfully employed to measure fixation parameters, saccadic, smooth pursuit and vergence eye movements. However, the relatively low sampling rate and moderate precision limit the suitability of the EyeX for monitoring micro-saccadic eye movements or for real-time gaze-contingent stimulus control. For these applications, research grade, high-cost eye tracking technology may still be necessary. Therefore, despite its limitations with respect to high-end devices, the EyeX has the potential to further the dissemination of eye tracking technology to a broad audience, and could be a valuable asset in consumer and gaming applications as well as a subset of basic and clinical research settings.

  9. NASA supporting studies for microgravity research on eye movements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cohen, Bernard

    1990-01-01

    The purpose of the work on this project was to provide support for ground-based studies on the effects of gravity on eye movements. The effects of microgravity on the optokinetic eye movements of humans are investigated. OKN was induced by having subjects watch 3.3 deg stripes moving at 35 deg/s for 45 s in a binocular, head-fixed apparatus. The field (hor., 88 deg; vert., 72 deg), was rotated about axes that were upright or tilted 45 deg or 90 deg. The head was upright or tilted 45 deg on the body. Head-horizontal (yaw axis) and head-vertical (pitch axis) components of OKN were recorded with electro-oculography (EOG). Slow phase velocity vectors were determined relative to gravity. With the head upright, the axis of eye rotation during yaw axis OKN was coincident with the stimulus axis and the spatial vertical. With the head tilted 45 deg on the body, a persistent vertical component of eye velocity developed during yaw axis stimulation, and there was an average shift of the axis of eye rotation toward the spatial vertical of approximately 18 deg in six subjects. During oblique optokinetic stimulation with the head upright, the axis of eye rotation shifted 12 deg toward the spatial vertical. When the head was tilted, the axis of eye rotation rotated to the other side of the spatial vertical by 5.4 deg during the same oblique stimulation. This counter-rotation of the axis of eye rotation is similar to the 'Muller (E) effect', in which the perception of the upright counter-rotates to the opposite side of the spatial vertical when subjects are tilted in darkness. The data were simulated by a model of OKN. Despite the short OKAN time constants, strong horizontal to vertical cross-coupling was produced if the horizontal and vertical time constants were in proper ratio, and there was no suppression of nystagmus orthogonal to the stimulus direction. This shows that the spatial orientation of OKN can be due to a restructuring of the system matrix of velocity storage as a

  10. Eye Movements When Viewing Advertisements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Emily eHiggins

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available In this selective review, we examine key findings on eye movements when viewing advertisements. We begin with a brief, general introduction to the properties and neural underpinnings of saccadic eye movements. Next, we provide an overview of eye movement behavior during reading, scene perception, and visual search, since each of these activities is, at various times, involved in viewing ads. We then review the literature on eye movements when viewing print ads and warning labels (of the kind that appear on alcohol and tobacco ads, before turning to a consideration of advertisements in dynamic media (television and the Internet. Finally, we propose topics and methodological approaches that may prove to be useful in future research.

  11. Research on Eye Movement Tracking in ESL Reading

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wenlian ZHAN

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Eye movement behavior in reading can reflect on-line cognitive process. Through the on-line measure of eye movement, under relatively natural reading condition, data of the reader’ s eye movement in the text can be obtained in processing information, and thus help to reveal the internal cognitive mechanisms in reading. With the development of intelligentization, serialization and portable direction in eye tracker, there exist great number of studies on eye movement tracking, but studies on eye movement features in ESL reading are rare. In such circumstances, this paper mainly illustrates eye movement patterns, the relationship between eye movement and perceptual processing, and eye movement control in ESL reading.

  12. Visual straight-ahead preference in saccadic eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Camors, Damien; Trotter, Yves; Pouget, Pierre; Gilardeau, Sophie; Durand, Jean-Baptiste

    2016-03-15

    Ocular saccades bringing the gaze toward the straight-ahead direction (centripetal) exhibit higher dynamics than those steering the gaze away (centrifugal). This is generally explained by oculomotor determinants: centripetal saccades are more efficient because they pull the eyes back toward their primary orbital position. However, visual determinants might also be invoked: elements located straight-ahead trigger saccades more efficiently because they receive a privileged visual processing. Here, we addressed this issue by using both pro- and anti-saccade tasks in order to dissociate the centripetal/centrifugal directions of the saccades, from the straight-ahead/eccentric locations of the visual elements triggering those saccades. Twenty participants underwent alternating blocks of pro- and anti-saccades during which eye movements were recorded binocularly at 1 kHz. The results confirm that centripetal saccades are always executed faster than centrifugal ones, irrespective of whether the visual elements have straight-ahead or eccentric locations. However, by contrast, saccades triggered by elements located straight-ahead are consistently initiated more rapidly than those evoked by eccentric elements, irrespective of their centripetal or centrifugal direction. Importantly, this double dissociation reveals that the higher dynamics of centripetal pro-saccades stem from both oculomotor and visual determinants, which act respectively on the execution and initiation of ocular saccades.

  13. Avian binocular vision: It's not just about what birds can see, it's also about what they can't.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luke P Tyrrell

    Full Text Available With the exception of primates, most vertebrates have laterally placed eyes. Binocular vision in vertebrates has been implicated in several functions, including depth perception, contrast discrimination, etc. However, the blind area in front of the head that is proximal to the binocular visual field is often neglected. This anterior blind area is important when discussing the evolution of binocular vision because its relative length is inversely correlated with the width of the binocular field. Therefore, species with wider binocular fields also have shorter anterior blind areas and objects along the mid-sagittal plane can be imaged at closer distances. Additionally, the anterior blind area is of functional significance for birds because the beak falls within this blind area. We tested for the first time some specific predictions about the functional role of the anterior blind area in birds controlling for phylogenetic effects. We used published data on visual field configuration in 40 species of birds and measured beak and skull parameters from museum specimens. We found that birds with proportionally longer beaks have longer anterior blind areas and thus narrower binocular fields. This result suggests that the anterior blind area and beak visibility do play a role in shaping binocular fields, and that binocular field width is not solely determined by the need for stereoscopic vision. In visually guided foragers, the ability to see the beak-and how much of the beak can be seen-varies predictably with foraging habits. For example, fish- and insect-eating specialists can see more of their own beak than birds eating immobile food can. But in non-visually guided foragers, there is no consistent relationship between the beak and anterior blind area. We discuss different strategies-wide binocular fields, large eye movements, and long beaks-that minimize the potential negative effects of the anterior blind area. Overall, we argue that there is more to

  14. Fetal Eye Movements on Magnetic Resonance Imaging

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woitek, Ramona; Kasprian, Gregor; Lindner, Christian; Stuhr, Fritz; Weber, Michael; Schöpf, Veronika; Brugger, Peter C.; Asenbaum, Ulrika; Furtner, Julia; Bettelheim, Dieter; Seidl, Rainer; Prayer, Daniela

    2013-01-01

    Objectives Eye movements are the physical expression of upper fetal brainstem function. Our aim was to identify and differentiate specific types of fetal eye movement patterns using dynamic MRI sequences. Their occurrence as well as the presence of conjugated eyeball motion and consistently parallel eyeball position was systematically analyzed. Methods Dynamic SSFP sequences were acquired in 72 singleton fetuses (17–40 GW, three age groups [17–23 GW, 24–32 GW, 33–40 GW]). Fetal eye movements were evaluated according to a modified classification originally published by Birnholz (1981): Type 0: no eye movements; Type I: single transient deviations; Type Ia: fast deviation, slower reposition; Type Ib: fast deviation, fast reposition; Type II: single prolonged eye movements; Type III: complex sequences; and Type IV: nystagmoid. Results In 95.8% of fetuses, the evaluation of eye movements was possible using MRI, with a mean acquisition time of 70 seconds. Due to head motion, 4.2% of the fetuses and 20.1% of all dynamic SSFP sequences were excluded. Eye movements were observed in 45 fetuses (65.2%). Significant differences between the age groups were found for Type I (p = 0.03), Type Ia (p = 0.031), and Type IV eye movements (p = 0.033). Consistently parallel bulbs were found in 27.3–45%. Conclusions In human fetuses, different eye movement patterns can be identified and described by MRI in utero. In addition to the originally classified eye movement patterns, a novel subtype has been observed, which apparently characterizes an important step in fetal brainstem development. We evaluated, for the first time, eyeball position in fetuses. Ultimately, the assessment of fetal eye movements by MRI yields the potential to identify early signs of brainstem dysfunction, as encountered in brain malformations such as Chiari II or molar tooth malformations. PMID:24194885

  15. Fetal eye movements on magnetic resonance imaging.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woitek, Ramona; Kasprian, Gregor; Lindner, Christian; Stuhr, Fritz; Weber, Michael; Schöpf, Veronika; Brugger, Peter C; Asenbaum, Ulrika; Furtner, Julia; Bettelheim, Dieter; Seidl, Rainer; Prayer, Daniela

    2013-01-01

    Eye movements are the physical expression of upper fetal brainstem function. Our aim was to identify and differentiate specific types of fetal eye movement patterns using dynamic MRI sequences. Their occurrence as well as the presence of conjugated eyeball motion and consistently parallel eyeball position was systematically analyzed. Dynamic SSFP sequences were acquired in 72 singleton fetuses (17-40 GW, three age groups [17-23 GW, 24-32 GW, 33-40 GW]). Fetal eye movements were evaluated according to a modified classification originally published by Birnholz (1981): Type 0: no eye movements; Type I: single transient deviations; Type Ia: fast deviation, slower reposition; Type Ib: fast deviation, fast reposition; Type II: single prolonged eye movements; Type III: complex sequences; and Type IV: nystagmoid. In 95.8% of fetuses, the evaluation of eye movements was possible using MRI, with a mean acquisition time of 70 seconds. Due to head motion, 4.2% of the fetuses and 20.1% of all dynamic SSFP sequences were excluded. Eye movements were observed in 45 fetuses (65.2%). Significant differences between the age groups were found for Type I (p = 0.03), Type Ia (p = 0.031), and Type IV eye movements (p = 0.033). Consistently parallel bulbs were found in 27.3-45%. In human fetuses, different eye movement patterns can be identified and described by MRI in utero. In addition to the originally classified eye movement patterns, a novel subtype has been observed, which apparently characterizes an important step in fetal brainstem development. We evaluated, for the first time, eyeball position in fetuses. Ultimately, the assessment of fetal eye movements by MRI yields the potential to identify early signs of brainstem dysfunction, as encountered in brain malformations such as Chiari II or molar tooth malformations.

  16. [Binocular fusion method for prevention of myopia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, G D

    1989-03-01

    When looking at a far object with two eyes, relaxation of convergence and accommodation occurred and accompanied by binocular fusion. Using this phenomenon a method of binocular fusion of targets was designed, that is the distance between two targets are just the same as the distance between two visual lines, while looking at a far object. During the images of the targets are fused, the accommodation and convergence are relaxed concomitantly; thus a result of correction of pseudomyopia and prevention of myopia is achieved. By means of binocular fusion, the eye muscle exercises were conducted and resulted in not only the far point further but also the near point closer. The skiascopic examination carried out at the same time of binocular fusion showed that the degrees of relaxed accommodation was 97.9% that of looking at an object in far distance. The above results indicated that the binocular fusion method had excellent effect on the prevention of myopia. This method is simple and feasible, conforms to the visual physiology, and thus can be widely adopted.

  17. Eye Movements in Gaze Interaction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Møllenbach, Emilie; Hansen, John Paulin; Lillholm, Martin

    2013-01-01

    Gaze as a sole input modality must support complex navigation and selection tasks. Gaze interaction combines specific eye movements and graphic display objects (GDOs). This paper suggests a unifying taxonomy of gaze interaction principles. The taxonomy deals with three types of eye movements...

  18. Compensatory eye movements in mice

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    A.M. van Alphen (Arjan)

    2002-01-01

    textabstractThis thesis will address the generation of compensatory eye movements in naturally mutated or genetically modified mice. The reason for generating compensatory eye movements is solely related to the requirements for good vision. In a subject moving through its environment the projection

  19. Spatial Coding of Eye Movements Relative to Perceived Orientations During Roll Tilt with Different Gravitoinertial Loads

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wood, Scott; Clement, Gilles

    2013-01-01

    This purpose of this study was to examine the spatial coding of eye movements during roll tilt relative to perceived orientations while free-floating during the microgravity phase of parabolic flight or during head tilt in normal gravity. Binocular videographic recordings obtained in darkness from six subjects allowed us to quantify the mean deviations in gaze trajectories along both horizontal and vertical coordinates relative to the aircraft and head orientations. Both variability and curvature of gaze trajectories increased during roll tilt compared to the upright position. The saccades were less accurate during parabolic flight compared to measurements obtained in normal gravity. The trajectories of saccades along perceived horizontal orientations tended to deviate in the same direction as the head tilt, while the deviations in gaze trajectories along the perceived vertical orientations deviated in the opposite direction relative to the head tilt. Although subjects were instructed to look off in the distance while performing the eye movements, fixation distance varied with vertical gaze direction independent of whether the saccades were made along perceived aircraft or head orientations. This coupling of horizontal vergence with vertical gaze is in a consistent direction with the vertical slant of the horopter. The increased errors in gaze trajectories along both perceived orientations during microgravity can be attributed to the otolith's role in spatial coding of eye movements.

  20. Contrast masking in strabismic amblyopia: attenuation, noise, interocular suppression and binocular summation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baker, Daniel H; Meese, Tim S; Hess, Robert F

    2008-07-01

    To investigate amblyopic contrast vision at threshold and above we performed pedestal-masking (contrast discrimination) experiments with a group of eight strabismic amblyopes using horizontal sinusoidal gratings (mainly 3c/deg) in monocular, binocular and dichoptic configurations balanced across eye (i.e. five conditions). With some exceptions in some observers, the four main results were as follows. (1) For the monocular and dichoptic conditions, sensitivity was less in the amblyopic eye than in the good eye at all mask contrasts. (2) Binocular and monocular dipper functions superimposed in the good eye. (3) Monocular masking functions had a normal dipper shape in the good eye, but facilitation was diminished in the amblyopic eye. (4) A less consistent result was normal facilitation in dichoptic masking when testing the good eye, but a loss of this when testing the amblyopic eye. This pattern of amblyopic results was replicated in a normal observer by placing a neutral density filter in front of one eye. The two-stage model of binocular contrast gain control [Meese, T.S., Georgeson, M.A. & Baker, D.H. (2006). Binocular contrast vision at and above threshold. Journal of Vision 6, 1224-1243.] was 'lesioned' in several ways to assess the form of the amblyopic deficit. The most successful model involves attenuation of signal and an increase in noise in the amblyopic eye, and intact stages of interocular suppression and binocular summation. This implies a behavioural influence from monocular noise in the amblyopic visual system as well as in normal observers with an ND filter over one eye.

  1. Binocular neurons in parastriate cortex: interocular 'matching' of receptive field properties, eye dominance and strength of silent suppression.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Phillip A Romo

    Full Text Available Spike-responses of single binocular neurons were recorded from a distinct part of primary visual cortex, the parastriate cortex (cytoarchitectonic area 18 of anaesthetized and immobilized domestic cats. Functional identification of neurons was based on the ratios of phase-variant (F1 component to the mean firing rate (F0 of their spike-responses to optimized (orientation, direction, spatial and temporal frequencies and size sine-wave-luminance-modulated drifting grating patches presented separately via each eye. In over 95% of neurons, the interocular differences in the phase-sensitivities (differences in F1/F0 spike-response ratios were small (≤ 0.3 and in over 80% of neurons, the interocular differences in preferred orientations were ≤ 10°. The interocular correlations of the direction selectivity indices and optimal spatial frequencies, like those of the phase sensitivies and optimal orientations, were also strong (coefficients of correlation r ≥ 0.7005. By contrast, the interocular correlations of the optimal temporal frequencies, the diameters of summation areas of the excitatory responses and suppression indices were weak (coefficients of correlation r ≤ 0.4585. In cells with high eye dominance indices (HEDI cells, the mean magnitudes of suppressions evoked by stimulation of silent, extra-classical receptive fields via the non-dominant eyes, were significantly greater than those when the stimuli were presented via the dominant eyes. We argue that the well documented 'eye-origin specific' segregation of the lateral geniculate inputs underpinning distinct eye dominance columns in primary visual cortices of mammals with frontally positioned eyes (distinct eye dominance columns, combined with significant interocular differences in the strength of silent suppressive fields, putatively contribute to binocular stereoscopic vision.

  2. 21 CFR 886.1510 - Eye movement monitor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 21 Food and Drugs 8 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Eye movement monitor. 886.1510 Section 886.1510...) MEDICAL DEVICES OPHTHALMIC DEVICES Diagnostic Devices § 886.1510 Eye movement monitor. (a) Identification. An eye movement monitor is an AC-powered device with an electrode intended to measure and record...

  3. Audiovisual plasticity following early abnormal visual experience: Reduced McGurk effect in people with one eye.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moro, Stefania S; Steeves, Jennifer K E

    2018-04-13

    Previously, we have shown that people who have had one eye surgically removed early in life during visual development have enhanced sound localization [1] and lack visual dominance, commonly observed in binocular and monocular (eye-patched) viewing controls [2]. Despite these changes, people with one eye integrate auditory and visual components of multisensory events optimally [3]. The current study investigates how people with one eye perceive the McGurk effect, an audiovisual illusion where a new syllable is perceived when visual lip movements do not match the corresponding sound [4]. We compared individuals with one eye to binocular and monocular viewing controls and found that they have a significantly smaller McGurk effect compared to binocular controls. Additionally, monocular controls tended to perceive the McGurk effect less often than binocular controls suggesting a small transient modulation of the McGurk effect. These results suggest altered weighting of the auditory and visual modalities with both short and long-term monocular viewing. These results indicate the presence of permanent adaptive perceptual accommodations in people who have lost one eye early in life that may serve to mitigate the loss of binocularity during early brain development. Crown Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  4. Premotor neurons encode torsional eye velocity during smooth-pursuit eye movements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Angelaki, Dora E.; Dickman, J. David

    2003-01-01

    Responses to horizontal and vertical ocular pursuit and head and body rotation in multiple planes were recorded in eye movement-sensitive neurons in the rostral vestibular nuclei (VN) of two rhesus monkeys. When tested during pursuit through primary eye position, the majority of the cells preferred either horizontal or vertical target motion. During pursuit of targets that moved horizontally at different vertical eccentricities or vertically at different horizontal eccentricities, eye angular velocity has been shown to include a torsional component the amplitude of which is proportional to half the gaze angle ("half-angle rule" of Listing's law). Approximately half of the neurons, the majority of which were characterized as "vertical" during pursuit through primary position, exhibited significant changes in their response gain and/or phase as a function of gaze eccentricity during pursuit, as if they were also sensitive to torsional eye velocity. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed a significant contribution of torsional eye movement sensitivity to the responsiveness of the cells. These findings suggest that many VN neurons encode three-dimensional angular velocity, rather than the two-dimensional derivative of eye position, during smooth-pursuit eye movements. Although no clear clustering of pursuit preferred-direction vectors along the semicircular canal axes was observed, the sensitivity of VN neurons to torsional eye movements might reflect a preservation of similar premotor coding of visual and vestibular-driven slow eye movements for both lateral-eyed and foveate species.

  5. Distinct eye movement patterns enhance dynamic visual acuity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palidis, Dimitrios J.; Wyder-Hodge, Pearson A.; Fooken, Jolande; Spering, Miriam

    2017-01-01

    Dynamic visual acuity (DVA) is the ability to resolve fine spatial detail in dynamic objects during head fixation, or in static objects during head or body rotation. This ability is important for many activities such as ball sports, and a close relation has been shown between DVA and sports expertise. DVA tasks involve eye movements, yet, it is unclear which aspects of eye movements contribute to successful performance. Here we examined the relation between DVA and the kinematics of smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements in a cohort of 23 varsity baseball players. In a computerized dynamic-object DVA test, observers reported the location of the gap in a small Landolt-C ring moving at various speeds while eye movements were recorded. Smooth pursuit kinematics—eye latency, acceleration, velocity gain, position error—and the direction and amplitude of saccadic eye movements were linked to perceptual performance. Results reveal that distinct eye movement patterns—minimizing eye position error, tracking smoothly, and inhibiting reverse saccades—were related to dynamic visual acuity. The close link between eye movement quality and DVA performance has important implications for the development of perceptual training programs to improve DVA. PMID:28187157

  6. Distinct eye movement patterns enhance dynamic visual acuity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palidis, Dimitrios J; Wyder-Hodge, Pearson A; Fooken, Jolande; Spering, Miriam

    2017-01-01

    Dynamic visual acuity (DVA) is the ability to resolve fine spatial detail in dynamic objects during head fixation, or in static objects during head or body rotation. This ability is important for many activities such as ball sports, and a close relation has been shown between DVA and sports expertise. DVA tasks involve eye movements, yet, it is unclear which aspects of eye movements contribute to successful performance. Here we examined the relation between DVA and the kinematics of smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements in a cohort of 23 varsity baseball players. In a computerized dynamic-object DVA test, observers reported the location of the gap in a small Landolt-C ring moving at various speeds while eye movements were recorded. Smooth pursuit kinematics-eye latency, acceleration, velocity gain, position error-and the direction and amplitude of saccadic eye movements were linked to perceptual performance. Results reveal that distinct eye movement patterns-minimizing eye position error, tracking smoothly, and inhibiting reverse saccades-were related to dynamic visual acuity. The close link between eye movement quality and DVA performance has important implications for the development of perceptual training programs to improve DVA.

  7. Yarbus, Eye Movements, and Vision

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Benjamin W Tatler

    2010-04-01

    Full Text Available The impact of Yarbus's research on eye movements was enormous following the translation of his book Eye Movements and Vision into English in 1967. In stark contrast, the published material in English concerning his life is scant. We provide a brief biography of Yarbus and assess his impact on contemporary approaches to research on eye movements. While early interest in his work focused on his study of stabilised retinal images, more recently this has been replaced with interest in his work on the cognitive influences on scanning patterns. We extended his experiment on the effect of instructions on viewing a picture using a portrait of Yarbus rather than a painting. The results obtained broadly supported those found by Yarbus.

  8. A new binocular approach to the treatment of amblyopia in adults well beyond the critical period of visual development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hess, R F; Mansouri, B; Thompson, B

    2010-01-01

    The present treatments for amblyopia are predominantly monocular aiming to improve the vision in the amblyopic eye through either patching of the fellow fixing eye or visual training of the amblyopic eye. This approach is problematic, not least of which because it rarely results in establishment of binocular function. Recently it has shown that amblyopes possess binocular cortical mechanisms for both threshold and suprathreshold stimuli. We outline a novel procedure for measuring the extent to which the fixing eye suppresses the fellow amblyopic eye, rendering what is a structurally binocular system, functionally monocular. Here we show that prolonged periods of viewing (under the artificial conditions of stimuli of different contrast in each eye) during which information from the two eyes is combined leads to a strengthening of binocular vision in strabismic amblyopes and eventual combination of binocular information under natural viewing conditions (stimuli of the same contrast in each eye). Concomitant improvement in monocular acuity of the amblyopic eye occurs with this reduction in suppression and strengthening of binocular fusion. Furthermore, in a majority of patients tested, stereoscopic function is established. This provides the basis for a new treatment of amblyopia, one that is purely binocular and aimed at reducing suppression as a first step.

  9. Eye movement identification based on accumulated time feature

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Baobao; Wu, Qiang; Sun, Jiande; Yan, Hua

    2017-06-01

    Eye movement is a new kind of feature for biometrical recognition, it has many advantages compared with other features such as fingerprint, face, and iris. It is not only a sort of static characteristics, but also a combination of brain activity and muscle behavior, which makes it effective to prevent spoofing attack. In addition, eye movements can be incorporated with faces, iris and other features recorded from the face region into multimode systems. In this paper, we do an exploring study on eye movement identification based on the eye movement datasets provided by Komogortsev et al. in 2011 with different classification methods. The time of saccade and fixation are extracted from the eye movement data as the eye movement features. Furthermore, the performance analysis was conducted on different classification methods such as the BP, RBF, ELMAN and SVM in order to provide a reference to the future research in this field.

  10. Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schenck, C H; Montplaisir, J Y; Frauscher, B

    2013-01-01

    We aimed to provide a consensus statement by the International Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Behavior Disorder Study Group (IRBD-SG) on devising controlled active treatment studies in rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) and devising studies of neuroprotection against Parkinson disease (PD...

  11. Development and Matching of Binocular Orientation Preference in Mouse V1

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Basabi eBhaumik

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Eye-specific thalamic inputs converge in the primary visual cortex (V1 and form the basis of binocular vision. For normal binocular perceptions, such as depth and stereopsis, binocularly matched orientation preference between the two eyes is required. A critical period of binocular matching of orientation preference in mice during normal development is reported in literature. Using a reaction diffusion model we present the development of RF and orientation selectivity in mouse V1 and investigate the binocular orientation preference matching during the critical period. At the onset of the critical period the preferred orientations of the modeled cells are mostly mismatched in the two eyes and the mismatch decreases and reaches levels reported in juvenile mouse by the end of the critical period. At the end of critical period 39% of cells in binocular zone in our model cortex is orientation selective. In literature around 40% cortical cells are reported as orientation selective in mouse V1. The starting and the closing time for critical period determine the orientation preference alignment between the two eyes and orientation tuning in cortical cells. The absence of near neighbor interaction among cortical cells during the development of thalmo-cortical wiring causes a salt and pepper organization in the orientation preference map in mice. It also results in much lower % of orientation selective cells in mice as compared to ferrets and cats having organized orientation maps with pinwheels.

  12. Development and matching of binocular orientation preference in mouse V1.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bhaumik, Basabi; Shah, Nishal P

    2014-01-01

    Eye-specific thalamic inputs converge in the primary visual cortex (V1) and form the basis of binocular vision. For normal binocular perceptions, such as depth and stereopsis, binocularly matched orientation preference between the two eyes is required. A critical period of binocular matching of orientation preference in mice during normal development is reported in literature. Using a reaction diffusion model we present the development of RF and orientation selectivity in mouse V1 and investigate the binocular orientation preference matching during the critical period. At the onset of the critical period the preferred orientations of the modeled cells are mostly mismatched in the two eyes and the mismatch decreases and reaches levels reported in juvenile mouse by the end of the critical period. At the end of critical period 39% of cells in binocular zone in our model cortex is orientation selective. In literature around 40% cortical cells are reported as orientation selective in mouse V1. The starting and the closing time for critical period determine the orientation preference alignment between the two eyes and orientation tuning in cortical cells. The absence of near neighbor interaction among cortical cells during the development of thalamo-cortical wiring causes a salt and pepper organization in the orientation preference map in mice. It also results in much lower % of orientation selective cells in mice as compared to ferrets and cats having organized orientation maps with pinwheels.

  13. Eye Movements During Everyday Behavior Predict Personality Traits.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoppe, Sabrina; Loetscher, Tobias; Morey, Stephanie A; Bulling, Andreas

    2018-01-01

    Besides allowing us to perceive our surroundings, eye movements are also a window into our mind and a rich source of information on who we are, how we feel, and what we do. Here we show that eye movements during an everyday task predict aspects of our personality. We tracked eye movements of 42 participants while they ran an errand on a university campus and subsequently assessed their personality traits using well-established questionnaires. Using a state-of-the-art machine learning method and a rich set of features encoding different eye movement characteristics, we were able to reliably predict four of the Big Five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness) as well as perceptual curiosity only from eye movements. Further analysis revealed new relations between previously neglected eye movement characteristics and personality. Our findings demonstrate a considerable influence of personality on everyday eye movement control, thereby complementing earlier studies in laboratory settings. Improving automatic recognition and interpretation of human social signals is an important endeavor, enabling innovative design of human-computer systems capable of sensing spontaneous natural user behavior to facilitate efficient interaction and personalization.

  14. Eye Movements During Everyday Behavior Predict Personality Traits

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sabrina Hoppe

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Besides allowing us to perceive our surroundings, eye movements are also a window into our mind and a rich source of information on who we are, how we feel, and what we do. Here we show that eye movements during an everyday task predict aspects of our personality. We tracked eye movements of 42 participants while they ran an errand on a university campus and subsequently assessed their personality traits using well-established questionnaires. Using a state-of-the-art machine learning method and a rich set of features encoding different eye movement characteristics, we were able to reliably predict four of the Big Five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness as well as perceptual curiosity only from eye movements. Further analysis revealed new relations between previously neglected eye movement characteristics and personality. Our findings demonstrate a considerable influence of personality on everyday eye movement control, thereby complementing earlier studies in laboratory settings. Improving automatic recognition and interpretation of human social signals is an important endeavor, enabling innovative design of human–computer systems capable of sensing spontaneous natural user behavior to facilitate efficient interaction and personalization.

  15. Visual comfort of binocular and 3D displays

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kooi, F.L.; Toet, A.

    2004-01-01

    Imperfections in binocular image pairs can cause serious viewing discomfort. For example, in stereo vision systems eye strain is caused by unintentional mismatches between the left and right eye images (stereo imperfections). Head-mounted displays can induce eye strain due to optical misalignments.

  16. Relating binocular and monocular vision in strabismic and anisometropic amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Agrawal, Ritwick; Conner, Ian P; Odom, J V; Schwartz, Terry L; Mendola, Janine D

    2006-06-01

    To examine deficits in monocular and binocular vision in adults with amblyopia and to test the following 2 hypotheses: (1) Regardless of clinical subtype, the degree of impairment in binocular integration predicts the pattern of monocular acuity deficits. (2) Subjects who lack binocular integration exhibit the most severe interocular suppression. Seven subjects with anisometropia, 6 subjects with strabismus, and 7 control subjects were tested. Monocular tests included Snellen acuity, grating acuity, Vernier acuity, and contrast sensitivity. Binocular tests included Titmus stereo test, binocular motion integration, and dichoptic contrast masking. As expected, both groups showed deficits in monocular acuity, with subjects with strabismus showing greater deficits in Vernier acuity. Both amblyopic groups were then characterized according to the degree of residual stereoacuity and binocular motion integration ability, and 67% of subjects with strabismus compared with 29% of subjects with anisometropia were classified as having "nonbinocular" vision according to our criterion. For this nonbinocular group, Vernier acuity is most impaired. In addition, the nonbinocular group showed the most dichoptic contrast masking of the amblyopic eye and the least dichoptic contrast masking of the fellow eye. The degree of residual binocularity and interocular suppression predicts monocular acuity and may be a significant etiological mechanism of vision loss.

  17. Differences of accommodative responses between two eyes under binocular viewing condition mediated by polarizing glasses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rui-Qing Wang

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available AIM:To study the differences of accommodative responses between the two eyes under 3 different polarized viewing conditions. METHODS:Fifteen volunteers with emmetrope were recruited into this study(aged 18~38, 6 males and 9 females. Three different viewing conditions were set up by using polarizing glasses and liquid crystal display:(1right eye could see the visual target on the screen, but left eye cannot see it;(2left eye could see the visual target on the screen, but right eye cannot see it;(3both eyes could see the target. Accommodative responses were measured by infrared auto-refractor when fixating at the target at 5, 2, 1, 0.5 and 0.33m under the above 3 viewing conditions. The differences of accommodative responses under different viewing conditions were compared by using variance analysis of repeated measuring and t test. RESULTS:Significant differences of accommodative responses between the two eyes were found under condition(1and(2at all the fixating distance. The accommodative responses in used eyes which can see the visual target were higher than in non-used eyes which cannot see the visual target(PP>0.05. CONCLUSION:Ciliary muscles in the used eyes were more relatively tonic than non-used eyes under binocular open viewing condition. The imbalance of accommodative responses between two eyes may be one of the risk factors resulting into the occurrence of myopia.

  18. Analysis of EEG Related Saccadic Eye Movement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Funase, Arao; Kuno, Yoshiaki; Okuma, Shigeru; Yagi, Tohru

    Our final goal is to establish the model for saccadic eye movement that connects the saccade and the electroencephalogram(EEG). As the first step toward this goal, we recorded and analyzed the saccade-related EEG. In the study recorded in this paper, we tried detecting a certain EEG that is peculiar to the eye movement. In these experiments, each subject was instructed to point their eyes toward visual targets (LEDs) or the direction of the sound sources (buzzers). In the control cases, the EEG was recorded in the case of no eye movemens. As results, in the visual experiments, we found that the potential of EEG changed sharply on the occipital lobe just before eye movement. Furthermore, in the case of the auditory experiments, similar results were observed. In the case of the visual experiments and auditory experiments without eye movement, we could not observed the EEG changed sharply. Moreover, when the subject moved his/her eyes toward a right-side target, a change in EEG potential was found on the right occipital lobe. On the contrary, when the subject moved his/her eyes toward a left-side target, a sharp change in EEG potential was found on the left occipital lobe.

  19. Eye and head movements shape gaze shifts in Indian peafowl.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yorzinski, Jessica L; Patricelli, Gail L; Platt, Michael L; Land, Michael F

    2015-12-01

    Animals selectively direct their visual attention toward relevant aspects of their environments. They can shift their attention using a combination of eye, head and body movements. While we have a growing understanding of eye and head movements in mammals, we know little about these processes in birds. We therefore measured the eye and head movements of freely behaving Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) using a telemetric eye-tracker. Both eye and head movements contributed to gaze changes in peafowl. When gaze shifts were smaller, eye movements played a larger role than when gaze shifts were larger. The duration and velocity of eye and head movements were positively related to the size of the eye and head movements, respectively. In addition, the coordination of eye and head movements in peafowl differed from that in mammals; peafowl exhibited a near-absence of the vestibulo-ocular reflex, which may partly result from the peafowl's ability to move their heads as quickly as their eyes. © 2015. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

  20. Graves' ophthalmopathy evaluated by infrared eye-movement recordings

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Feldon, S.E.; Unsoeld, R.

    1982-01-01

    Thirteen patients with varying degrees of Graves' ophthalmopathy were examined using high-resolution infrared oculography to determine peak velocities for horizontal eye movements between 3 degrees and 30 degrees. As severity of the orbital disease increased, peak velocities became substantially lower. Vertical-muscle surgery failed to have any effect on peak velocity of horizontal eye movements. In contrast, orbital decompression caused notable improvement in peak velocity of eye movements. Eye-movement recordings, which provide a measure of extraocular muscle function rather than structure, may provide a safe, sensitive, and accurate method for classifying and following up patients with Graves' ophthalmopathy

  1. Binocular Therapy for Childhood Amblyopia Improves Vision Without Breaking Interocular Suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bossi, Manuela; Tailor, Vijay K; Anderson, Elaine J; Bex, Peter J; Greenwood, John A; Dahlmann-Noor, Annegret; Dakin, Steven C

    2017-06-01

    Amblyopia is a common developmental visual impairment characterized by a substantial difference in acuity between the two eyes. Current monocular treatments, which promote use of the affected eye by occluding or blurring the fellow eye, improve acuity, but are hindered by poor compliance. Recently developed binocular treatments can produce rapid gains in visual function, thought to be as a result of reduced interocular suppression. We set out to develop an effective home-based binocular treatment system for amblyopia that would engage high levels of compliance but that would also allow us to assess the role of suppression in children's response to binocular treatment. Balanced binocular viewing therapy (BBV) involves daily viewing of dichoptic movies (with "visibility" matched across the two eyes) and gameplay (to monitor compliance and suppression). Twenty-two children (3-11 years) with anisometropic (n = 7; group 1) and strabismic or combined mechanism amblyopia (group 2; n = 6 and 9, respectively) completed the study. Groups 1 and 2 were treated for a maximum of 8 or 24 weeks, respectively. The treatment elicited high levels of compliance (on average, 89.4% ± 24.2% of daily dose in 68.23% ± 12.2% of days on treatment) and led to a mean improvement in acuity of 0.27 logMAR (SD 0.22) for the amblyopic eye. Importantly, acuity gains were not correlated with a reduction in suppression. BBV is a binocular treatment for amblyopia that can be self-administered at home (with remote monitoring), producing rapid and substantial benefits that cannot be solely mediated by a reduction in interocular suppression.

  2. Impaired exploratory eye movements in children with Asperger's syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ohya, Takashi; Morita, Kiichiro; Yamashita, Yushiro; Egami, Chiyomi; Ishii, Youhei; Nagamitsu, Shinichiro; Matsuishi, Toyojiro

    2014-03-01

    Previous eye-tracking studies using an eye mark recorder have reported that disturbances in exploratory eye movements in adult schizophrenic patients are associated with social functioning. The current study sought to determine whether exploratory eye-movement disturbances are present in children with Asperger's syndrome (AS) compared with typically developing (TD) children. MATERIALS/PARTICIPANTS: The participants were 23 children with AS and 23 age-matched TD children. We measured exploratory eye movements using an EMR-8B eye mark recorder and an exploratory eye movement-measuring device. Eye movements were recorded while participants freely observed a geometric figure (free viewing task), and while they complied with the instructions of an experimenter (repeat-comparison task). We assessed eye fixation points (EFPs) and total eye scanning length (TESL) in all tasks, and measured the responsive search score (RSS) in the repeat-comparison task. In the free viewing task, children with AS exhibited significantly shorter TESL compared with TD children. In the repeat-comparison task, children with AS exhibited significantly lower RSS. Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire scores were negatively correlated with both EFP and TESL, but not RSS. The current results revealed that children with AS exhibited dysfunction in exploratory eye movements. Thus, assessing exploratory eye movements in a repeat-comparison task may be useful for detecting social impairment among children with AS. Copyright © 2013 The Japanese Society of Child Neurology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. Peripheral vision benefits spatial learning by guiding eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamamoto, Naohide; Philbeck, John W

    2013-01-01

    The loss of peripheral vision impairs spatial learning and navigation. However, the mechanisms underlying these impairments remain poorly understood. One advantage of having peripheral vision is that objects in an environment are easily detected and readily foveated via eye movements. The present study examined this potential benefit of peripheral vision by investigating whether competent performance in spatial learning requires effective eye movements. In Experiment 1, participants learned room-sized spatial layouts with or without restriction on direct eye movements to objects. Eye movements were restricted by having participants view the objects through small apertures in front of their eyes. Results showed that impeding effective eye movements made subsequent retrieval of spatial memory slower and less accurate. The small apertures also occluded much of the environmental surroundings, but the importance of this kind of occlusion was ruled out in Experiment 2 by showing that participants exhibited intact learning of the same spatial layouts when luminescent objects were viewed in an otherwise dark room. Together, these findings suggest that one of the roles of peripheral vision in spatial learning is to guide eye movements, highlighting the importance of spatial information derived from eye movements for learning environmental layouts.

  4. Binocular rivalry produced by temporal frequency differences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David eAlais

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Binocular rivalry occurs when each eye views images that are markedly different. Rather than seeing a binocular fusion of the two, each image is seen exclusively in a stochastic alternation of the monocular images. Here we examine whether temporal frequency differences will trigger binocular rivalry by presenting two random dot arrays that are spatially matched but which modulate temporally at two different rates and contained no net translation. We found that a perceptual alternation between the two temporal frequencies did indeed occur, provided the frequencies were sufficiently different, indicating that temporal information can produce binocular rivalry in the absence of spatial conflict. This finding is discussed with regard to the dependence of rivalry on conflict between spatial and temporal channels.

  5. Bilateral symmetry in vision and influence of ocular surgical procedures on binocular vision: A topical review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Samuel Arba Mosquera

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available We analyze the role of bilateral symmetry in enhancing binocular visual ability in human eyes, and further explore how efficiently bilateral symmetry is preserved in different ocular surgical procedures. The inclusion criterion for this review was strict relevance to the clinical questions under research. Enantiomorphism has been reported in lower order aberrations, higher order aberrations and cone directionality. When contrast differs in the two eyes, binocular acuity is better than monocular acuity of the eye that receives higher contrast. Anisometropia has an uncommon occurrence in large populations. Anisometropia seen in infancy and childhood is transitory and of little consequence for the visual acuity. Binocular summation of contrast signals declines with age, independent of inter-ocular differences. The symmetric associations between the right and left eye could be explained by the symmetry in pupil offset and visual axis which is always nasal in both eyes. Binocular summation mitigates poor visual performance under low luminance conditions and strong inter-ocular disparity detrimentally affects binocular summation. Considerable symmetry of response exists in fellow eyes of patients undergoing myopic PRK and LASIK, however the method to determine whether or not symmetry is maintained consist of comparing individual terms in a variety of ad hoc ways both before and after the refractive surgery, ignoring the fact that retinal image quality for any individual is based on the sum of all terms. The analysis of bilateral symmetry should be related to the patients’ binocular vision status. The role of aberrations in monocular and binocular vision needs further investigation.

  6. P3-4: Binocular Visual Acuity in Exotropia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heekyung Yang

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Purpose: To investigate binocular interaction of visual acuity in patients with intermittent exotropia and its relationship with accommodative responses during binocular vision. Methods: Sixty-seven patients with intermittent exotropia of 8 years or older were included. Binocular visual acuity (BVA and monocular visual acuity (MVA were measured in sequence. Accommodative responses of both eyes were measured using the WAM-5500 autorefractor/keratometer (GrandSeiko, Fukuyama, Japan during binocular and monocular viewing conditions at 6 m. Accommodative responses during binocular vision were calculated using the difference between the refractive errors of binocular and monocular vision. Main outcome measures: Binocular interactions of visual acuity were categorized as binocular summation, equivalency, or inhibition. The prevalence of the 3 patterns of binocular interaction was investigated. Accommodative responses were correlated with differences between BVA and better MVA. Results: Most patients (41 patients, 61.2% showed binocular equivalency. Binocular inhibition and summation were noted in 6 (9.0% and 20 (29.9% patients, respectively. Linear regression analysis revealed a significant correlation between binocular interaction and accommodative responses during binocular vision (p < .001. Accommodative responses significantly correlated with the angle of exodeviation at distance (p = .002. Conclusions: In patients with intermittent exotropia, binocular inhibition is associated with increased accommodation and a larger angle of exodeviation, suggesting that accommodative convergence is a mechanism that maintains ocular alignment. Thus, BVA inhibition may be attributed to diminishing fusional control in patients with intermittent exotropia.

  7. Eye Movements in Darkness Modulate Self-Motion Perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clemens, Ivar Adrianus H; Selen, Luc P J; Pomante, Antonella; MacNeilage, Paul R; Medendorp, W Pieter

    2017-01-01

    During self-motion, humans typically move the eyes to maintain fixation on the stationary environment around them. These eye movements could in principle be used to estimate self-motion, but their impact on perception is unknown. We had participants judge self-motion during different eye-movement conditions in the absence of full-field optic flow. In a two-alternative forced choice task, participants indicated whether the second of two successive passive lateral whole-body translations was longer or shorter than the first. This task was used in two experiments. In the first ( n = 8), eye movements were constrained differently in the two translation intervals by presenting either a world-fixed or body-fixed fixation point or no fixation point at all (allowing free gaze). Results show that perceived translations were shorter with a body-fixed than a world-fixed fixation point. A linear model indicated that eye-movement signals received a weight of ∼25% for the self-motion percept. This model was independently validated in the trials without a fixation point (free gaze). In the second experiment ( n = 10), gaze was free during both translation intervals. Results show that the translation with the larger eye-movement excursion was judged more often to be larger than chance, based on an oculomotor choice probability analysis. We conclude that eye-movement signals influence self-motion perception, even in the absence of visual stimulation.

  8. Design, Sensing and Control of a Robotic Prosthetic Eye for Natural Eye Movement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. J. Gu

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available Loss of an eye is a tragedy for a person, who may suffer psychologically and physically. This paper is concerned with the design, sensing and control of a robotic prosthetic eye that moves horizontally in synchronization with the movement of the natural eye. Two generations of robotic prosthetic eye models have been developed. The first generation model uses an external infrared sensor array mounted on the frame of a pair of eyeglasses to detect the natural eye movement and to feed the control system to drive the artificial eye to move with the natural eye. The second generation model removes the impractical usage of the eye glass frame and uses the human brain EOG (electro-ocular-graph signal picked up by electrodes placed on the sides of a person's temple to carry out the same eye movement detection and control tasks as mentioned above. Theoretical issues on sensor failure detection and recovery, and signal processing techniques used in sensor data fusion, are studied using statistical methods and artificial neural network based techniques. In addition, practical control system design and implementation using micro-controllers are studied and implemented to carry out the natural eye movement detection and artificial robotic eye control tasks. Simulation and experimental studies are performed, and the results are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the research project reported in this paper.

  9. Ictal SPECT in patients with rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mayer, Geert; Bitterlich, Marion; Kuwert, Torsten; Ritt, Philipp; Stefan, Hermann

    2015-05-01

    Rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder is a rapid eye movement parasomnia clinically characterized by acting out dreams due to disinhibition of muscle tone in rapid eye movement sleep. Up to 80-90% of the patients with rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder develop neurodegenerative disorders within 10-15 years after symptom onset. The disorder is reported in 45-60% of all narcoleptic patients. Whether rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder is also a predictor for neurodegeneration in narcolepsy is not known. Although the pathophysiology causing the disinhibition of muscle tone in rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder has been studied extensively in animals, little is known about the mechanisms in humans. Most of the human data are from imaging or post-mortem studies. Recent studies show altered functional connectivity between substantia nigra and striatum in patients with rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder. We were interested to study which regions are activated in rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder during actual episodes by performing ictal single photon emission tomography. We studied one patient with idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder, one with Parkinson's disease and rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder, and two patients with narcolepsy and rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder. All patients underwent extended video polysomnography. The tracer was injected after at least 10 s of consecutive rapid eye movement sleep and 10 s of disinhibited muscle tone accompanied by movements registered by an experienced sleep technician. Ictal single photon emission tomography displayed the same activation in the bilateral premotor areas, the interhemispheric cleft, the periaqueductal area, the dorsal and ventral pons and the anterior lobe of the cerebellum in all patients. Our study shows that in patients with Parkinson's disease and rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder-in contrast to wakefulness

  10. Emotion and Interhemispheric Interactions in Binocular Rivalry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    K L Ritchie

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available Previous research has shown that fear-related stimuli presented in peripheral vision are preferentially processed over stimuli depicting other emotions. Furthermore, emotional content can influence dominance duration in binocular rivalry, with the period of dominance for an emotional image (e.g. a fearful face being significantly longer than a neutral image (e.g. a neutral face or a house. Experiment 1 of the current study combined these two ideas to investigate the role of emotion in binocular rivalry with face/house pairs viewed in the periphery. The results showed that faces were perceived as more dominant than houses, and fearful faces more so than neutral faces, even when viewed in the periphery. Experiment 2 extended this paradigm to present a rival pair in the periphery in each hemifield, with each eye either viewing the same stimulus in each location (traditional condition, or a different stimulus in each location (Diaz-Caneja condition. The results showed that the two pairs tended to rival in synchrony only in the traditional condition. Taken together, the results show that face dominance and emotion dominance in binocular rivalry persist in the periphery, and that interhemispheric interactions in binocular rivalry depend on an eye- as opposed to an object-based mechanism.

  11. Using an eye tracker for accurate eye movement artifact correction

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kierkels, J.J.M.; Riani, J.; Bergmans, J.W.M.; Boxtel, van G.J.M.

    2007-01-01

    We present a new method to correct eye movement artifacts in electroencephalogram (EEG) data. By using an eye tracker, whose data cannot be corrupted by any electrophysiological signals, an accurate method for correction is developed. The eye-tracker data is used in a Kalman filter to estimate which

  12. Evaluating camouflage design using eye movement data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Chiuhsiang Joe; Chang, Chi-Chan; Lee, Yung-Hui

    2014-05-01

    This study investigates the characteristics of eye movements during a camouflaged target search task. Camouflaged targets were randomly presented on two natural landscapes. The performance of each camouflage design was assessed by target detection hit rate, detection time, number of fixations on display, first saccade amplitude to target, number of fixations on target, fixation duration on target, and subjective ratings of search task difficulty. The results showed that the camouflage patterns could significantly affect the eye-movement behavior, especially first saccade amplitude and fixation duration, and the findings could be used to increase the sensitivity of the camouflage assessment. We hypothesized that the assessment could be made with regard to the differences in detectability and discriminability of the camouflage patterns. These could explain less efficient search behavior in eye movements. Overall, data obtained from eye movements can be used to significantly enhance the interpretation of the effects of different camouflage design. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved.

  13. Design, Sensing and Control of a Robotic Prosthetic Eye for Natural Eye Movement

    OpenAIRE

    J. J. Gu; M. Meng; A. Cook; P. X. Liu

    2006-01-01

    Loss of an eye is a tragedy for a person, who may suffer psychologically and physically. This paper is concerned with the design, sensing and control of a robotic prosthetic eye that moves horizontally in synchronization with the movement of the natural eye. Two generations of robotic prosthetic eye models have been developed. The first generation model uses an external infrared sensor array mounted on the frame of a pair of eyeglasses to detect the natural eye movement and to feed the contro...

  14. Binocular iPad Game vs Patching for Treatment of Amblyopia in Children: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelly, Krista R; Jost, Reed M; Dao, Lori; Beauchamp, Cynthia L; Leffler, Joel N; Birch, Eileen E

    2016-12-01

    Fellow eye patching has long been the standard treatment for amblyopia, but it does not always restore 20/20 vision or teach the eyes to work together. Amblyopia can be treated with binocular games that rebalance contrast between the eyes so that a child may overcome suppression. However, it is unclear whether binocular treatment is comparable to patching in treating amblyopia. To assess the effectiveness of a binocular iPad (Apple Inc) adventure game as amblyopia treatment and compare this binocular treatment with patching, the current standard of care. This investigation was a randomized clinical trial with a crossover design at a nonprofit eye research institute. Between February 20, 2015, and January 4, 2016, a total of 28 patients were enrolled in the study, with 14 randomized to binocular game treatment and 14 to patching treatment. Binocular game and patching as amblyopia treatments. The primary outcome was change in amblyopic eye best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) at the 2-week visit. Secondary outcomes were change in stereoacuity and suppression at the 2-week visit and change in BCVA at the 4-week visit. Among 28 children, the mean (SD) age at baseline was 6.7 (1.4) years (age range, 4.6-9.5 years), and 7 (25%) were female. At baseline, the mean (SD) amblyopic eye BCVA was 0.48 (0.14) logMAR (approximately 20/63; range, 0.3-0.8 logMAR [20/40 to 20/125]), with 14 children randomized to the binocular game and 14 to patching for 2 weeks. At the 2-week visit, improvement in amblyopic eye BCVA was greater with the binocular game compared with patching, with a mean (SD) improvement of 0.15 (0.08) logMAR (mean [SD], 1.5 [0.8] lines) vs 0.07 (0.08) logMAR (mean [SD], 0.7 [0.8] line; P = .02) after 2 weeks of treatment. These improvements from baseline were significant for the binocular game (mean [SD] improvement, 1.5 [0.8] lines; P suppression improved from baseline at the 2-week visit for the binocular game (mean [SD], 4.82 [2.82] vs 3.24 [2.87]; P

  15. Vision in avian emberizid foragers: maximizing both binocular vision and fronto-lateral visual acuity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moore, Bret A; Pita, Diana; Tyrrell, Luke P; Fernández-Juricic, Esteban

    2015-05-01

    Avian species vary in their visual system configuration, but previous studies have often compared single visual traits between two to three distantly related species. However, birds use different visual dimensions that cannot be maximized simultaneously to meet different perceptual demands, potentially leading to trade-offs between visual traits. We studied the degree of inter-specific variation in multiple visual traits related to foraging and anti-predator behaviors in nine species of closely related emberizid sparrows, controlling for phylogenetic effects. Emberizid sparrows maximize binocular vision, even seeing their bill tips in some eye positions, which may enhance the detection of prey and facilitate food handling. Sparrows have a single retinal center of acute vision (i.e. fovea) projecting fronto-laterally (but not into the binocular field). The foveal projection close to the edge of the binocular field may shorten the time to gather and process both monocular and binocular visual information from the foraging substrate. Contrary to previous work, we found that species with larger visual fields had higher visual acuity, which may compensate for larger blind spots (i.e. pectens) above the center of acute vision, enhancing predator detection. Finally, species with a steeper change in ganglion cell density across the retina had higher eye movement amplitude, probably due to a more pronounced reduction in visual resolution away from the fovea, which would need to be moved around more frequently. The visual configuration of emberizid passive prey foragers is substantially different from that of previously studied avian groups (e.g. sit-and-wait and tactile foragers). © 2015. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

  16. Monocular and binocular development in children with albinism, infantile nystagmus syndrome, and normal vision.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huurneman, Bianca; Boonstra, F Nienke

    2013-12-01

    To compare interocular acuity differences, crowding ratios, and binocular summation ratios in 4- to 8-year-old children with albinism (n = 16), children with infantile nystagmus syndrome (n = 10), and children with normal vision (n = 72). Interocular acuity differences and binocular summation ratios were compared between groups. Crowding ratios were calculated by dividing the single Landolt C decimal acuity with the crowded Landolt C decimal acuity mono- and binocularly. A linear regression analysis was conducted to investigate the contribution of 5 predictors to the monocular and binocular crowding ratio: nystagmus amplitude, nystagmus frequency, strabismus, astigmatism, and anisometropia. Crowding ratios were higher under mono- and binocular viewing conditions for children with infantile nystagmus syndrome than for children with normal vision. Children with albinism showed higher crowding ratios in their poorer eye and under binocular viewing conditions than children with normal vision. Children with albinism and children with infantile nystagmus syndrome showed larger interocular acuity differences than children with normal vision (0.1 logMAR in our clinical groups and 0.0 logMAR in children with normal vision). Binocular summation ratios did not differ between groups. Strabismus and nystagmus amplitude predicted the crowding ratio in the poorer eye (p = 0.015 and p = 0.005, respectively). The crowding ratio in the better eye showed a marginally significant relation with nystagmus frequency and depth of anisometropia (p = 0.082 and p = 0.070, respectively). The binocular crowding ratio was not predicted by any of the variables. Children with albinism and children with infantile nystagmus syndrome show larger interocular acuity differences than children with normal vision. Strabismus and nystagmus amplitude are significant predictors of the crowding ratio in the poorer eye.

  17. Binocular treatment of amblyopia using videogames (BRAVO): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

    OpenAIRE

    Guo, Cindy X.; Babu, Raiju J.; Black, Joanna M.; Bobier, William R.; Lam, Carly S. Y.; Dai, Shuan; Gao, Tina Y.; Hess, Robert F.; Jenkins, Michelle; Jiang, Yannan; Kowal, Lionel; Parag, Varsha; South, Jayshree; Staffieri, Sandra Elfride; Walker, Natalie

    2016-01-01

    Background Amblyopia is a common neurodevelopmental disorder of vision that is characterised by visual impairment in one eye and compromised binocular visual function. Existing evidence-based treatments for children include patching the nonamblyopic eye to encourage use of the amblyopic eye. Currently there are no widely accepted treatments available for adults with amblyopia. The aim of this trial is to assess the efficacy of a new binocular, videogame-based treatment for amblyopia in older ...

  18. Eye movement during retrieval of emotional autobiographical memories.

    Science.gov (United States)

    El Haj, Mohamad; Nandrino, Jean-Louis; Antoine, Pascal; Boucart, Muriel; Lenoble, Quentin

    2017-03-01

    This study assessed whether specific eye movement patterns are observed during emotional autobiographical retrieval. Participants were asked to retrieve positive, negative and neutral memories while their scan path was recorded by an eye-tracker. Results showed that positive and negative emotional memories triggered more fixations and saccades but shorter fixation duration than neutral memories. No significant differences were observed between emotional and neutral memories for duration and amplitude of saccades. Positive and negative retrieval triggered similar eye movement (i.e., similar number of fixations and saccades, fixation duration, duration of saccades, and amplitude of saccades). Interestingly, the participants reported higher visual imagery for emotional memories than for neutral memories. The findings demonstrate similarities and differences in eye movement during retrieval of neutral and emotional memories. Eye movement during autobiographical retrieval seems to be triggered by the creation of visual mental images as the latter are indexed by autobiographical reconstruction. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  19. Impact of Air Movement on Eye Symptoms

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Melikov, Arsen Krikor; Sakoi, Tomonori; Kolencíková, Sona

    2013-01-01

    The impact of direction, oscillation and temperature of isothermal room air movement on eye discomfort and tear film quality was studied. Twenty-four male subjects participated in the experiment. Horizontal air movement against the face and chest was generated by a large desk fan – LDF and a small...... when the airflow was directed against the face and when against the chest, LDF with and without oscillation and PV. Eye tear film samples were taken and analyzed at the beginning and the end of the exposures. Eye irritation and dryness were reported by the subjects. The air movement under individual...... control did not change significantly the tear film quality though tendency for improvement was observed. Eye dryness increased much when the airflow was blowing constantly against the face compared to oscillating airflow, airflow directed against the chest and upward airflow against the face....

  20. Calculation method of CGH for Binocular Eyepiece-Type Electro Holography

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yang, Chanyoung; Yoneyama, Takuo; Sakamoto, Yuji; Okuyama, Fumio

    2013-01-01

    We had researched about eyepiece-type electro holography to display 3-D images of larger objects at wider angle. We had enlarged visual field considering depth of object with Fourier optical system using two lenses. In this paper, we extend our system for binocular. In the binocular system, we use two different holograms for each eye. The 3-D image for left eye should be observed like the real object observed using left eye and the same for right eye. So, we propose a method of calculation of computer-generated hologram (CGH) transforming the coordinate system of the model data to make two holograms for binocular eyepiece-type electro holography. The coordinate system of original model data is called the world coordinate system. The left and the right coordinate system are transformed from the world coordinate system. We also propose the method for correcting the installation error that occurs when placing the electronic and optical devices. The installation error is calculated and the model data is corrected using the distance between measured position and setup position of the reconstructed image Optical reconstruction experiments were carried out to verify the proposed method.

  1. Smooth pursuit eye movements and schizophrenia: literature review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Franco, J G; de Pablo, J; Gaviria, A M; Sepúlveda, E; Vilella, E

    2014-09-01

    To review the scientific literature about the relationship between impairment on smooth pursuit eye movements and schizophrenia. Narrative review that includes historical articles, reports about basic and clinical investigation, systematic reviews, and meta-analysis on the topic. Up to 80% of schizophrenic patients have impairment of smooth pursuit eye movements. Despite the diversity of test protocols, 65% of patients and controls are correctly classified by their overall performance during this pursuit. The smooth pursuit eye movements depend on the ability to anticipate the target's velocity and the visual feedback, as well as on learning and attention. The neuroanatomy implicated in smooth pursuit overlaps to some extent with certain frontal cortex zones associated with some clinical and neuropsychological characteristics of the schizophrenia, therefore some specific components of smooth pursuit anomalies could serve as biomarkers of the disease. Due to their sedative effect, antipsychotics have a deleterious effect on smooth pursuit eye movements, thus these movements cannot be used to evaluate the efficacy of the currently available treatments. Standardized evaluation of smooth pursuit eye movements on schizophrenia will allow to use specific aspects of that pursuit as biomarkers for the study of its genetics, psychopathology, or neuropsychology. Copyright © 2013 Sociedad Española de Oftalmología. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

  2. Voluntary eye movements direct attention on the mental number space.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ranzini, Mariagrazia; Lisi, Matteo; Zorzi, Marco

    2016-05-01

    Growing evidence suggests that orienting visual attention in space can influence the processing of numerical magnitude, with leftward orienting speeding up the processing of small numbers relative to larger ones and the converse for rightward orienting. The manipulation of eye movements is a convenient way to direct visuospatial attention, but several aspects of the complex relationship between eye movements, attention orienting and number processing remain unexplored. In a previous study, we observed that inducing involuntary, reflexive eye movements by means of optokinetic stimulation affected number processing only when numerical magnitude was task relevant (i.e., during magnitude comparison, but not during parity judgment; Ranzini et al., in J Cogn Psychol 27, 459-470, (2015). Here, we investigated whether processing of task-irrelevant numerical magnitude can be modulated by voluntary eye movements, and whether the type of eye movements (smooth pursuit vs. saccades) would influence this interaction. Participants tracked with their gaze a dot while listening to a digit. The numerical task was to indicate whether the digit was odd or even through non-spatial, verbal responses. The dot could move leftward or rightward either continuously, allowing tracking by smooth pursuit eye movements, or in discrete steps across a series of adjacent locations, triggering a sequence of saccades. Both smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements similarly affected number processing and modulated response times for large numbers as a function of direction of motion. These findings suggest that voluntary eye movements redirect attention in mental number space and highlight that eye movements should play a key factor in the investigation of number-space interactions.

  3. CUE: counterfeit-resistant usable eye movement-based authentication via oculomotor plant characteristics and complex eye movement patterns

    Science.gov (United States)

    Komogortsev, Oleg V.; Karpov, Alexey; Holland, Corey D.

    2012-06-01

    The widespread use of computers throughout modern society introduces the necessity for usable and counterfeit-resistant authentication methods to ensure secure access to personal resources such as bank accounts, e-mail, and social media. Current authentication methods require tedious memorization of lengthy pass phrases, are often prone to shouldersurfing, and may be easily replicated (either by counterfeiting parts of the human body or by guessing an authentication token based on readily available information). This paper describes preliminary work toward a counterfeit-resistant usable eye movement-based (CUE) authentication method. CUE does not require any passwords (improving the memorability aspect of the authentication system), and aims to provide high resistance to spoofing and shoulder-surfing by employing the combined biometric capabilities of two behavioral biometric traits: 1) oculomotor plant characteristics (OPC) which represent the internal, non-visible, anatomical structure of the eye; 2) complex eye movement patterns (CEM) which represent the strategies employed by the brain to guide visual attention. Both OPC and CEM are extracted from the eye movement signal provided by an eye tracking system. Preliminary results indicate that the fusion of OPC and CEM traits is capable of providing a 30% reduction in authentication error when compared to the authentication accuracy of individual traits.

  4. Levels of processing and Eye Movements: A Stimulus driven approach

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mulvey, Fiona Bríd

    2014-01-01

    movements can be controlled either by bottom up stimulus properties or by top down cognitive control, studies have compared eye movements in real world tasks and searched for indicators of cognitive load or level of attention when task demands increase. Extracting the effects of cognitive processing on eye......The aim of this research is to investigate the explication of levels of attention through eye movement parameters. Previous research from disparate fields have suggested that eye movements are related to cognitive processing, however, the exact nature of the relationship is unclear. Since eye...... to investigate individual differences in levels of processing within the normal population using existing constructs and tests of cognitive style. Study 4 investigates these stimuli and the eye movements of a clinical group with known interruption to the dorsal stream of processing, and subsequent isolated...

  5. Eye Movement Indices in the Study of Depressive Disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Yu; Xu, Yangyang; Xia, Mengqing; Zhang, Tianhong; Wang, Junjie; Liu, Xu; He, Yongguang; Wang, Jijun

    2016-12-25

    Impaired cognition is one of the most common core symptoms of depressive disorder. Eye movement testing mainly reflects patients' cognitive functions, such as cognition, memory, attention, recognition, and recall. This type of testing has great potential to improve theories related to cognitive functioning in depressive episodes as well as potential in its clinical application. This study investigated whether eye movement indices of patients with unmedicated depressive disorder were abnormal or not, as well as the relationship between these indices and mental symptoms. Sixty patients with depressive disorder and sixty healthy controls (who were matched by gender, age and years of education) were recruited, and completed eye movement tests including three tasks: fixation task, saccade task and free-view task. The EyeLink desktop eye tracking system was employed to collect eye movement information, and analyze the eye movement indices of the three tasks between the two groups. (1) In the fixation task, compared to healthy controls, patients with depressive disorder showed more fixations, shorter fixation durations, more saccades and longer saccadic lengths; (2) In the saccade task, patients with depressive disorder showed longer anti-saccade latencies and smaller anti-saccade peak velocities; (3) In the free-view task, patients with depressive disorder showed fewer saccades and longer mean fixation durations; (4) Correlation analysis showed that there was a negative correlation between the pro-saccade amplitude and anxiety symptoms, and a positive correlation between the anti-saccade latency and anxiety symptoms. The depression symptoms were negatively correlated with fixation times, saccades, and saccadic paths respectively in the free-view task; while the mean fixation duration and depression symptoms showed a positive correlation. Compared to healthy controls, patients with depressive disorder showed significantly abnormal eye movement indices. In addition

  6. An information maximization model of eye movements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Renninger, Laura Walker; Coughlan, James; Verghese, Preeti; Malik, Jitendra

    2005-01-01

    We propose a sequential information maximization model as a general strategy for programming eye movements. The model reconstructs high-resolution visual information from a sequence of fixations, taking into account the fall-off in resolution from the fovea to the periphery. From this framework we get a simple rule for predicting fixation sequences: after each fixation, fixate next at the location that minimizes uncertainty (maximizes information) about the stimulus. By comparing our model performance to human eye movement data and to predictions from a saliency and random model, we demonstrate that our model is best at predicting fixation locations. Modeling additional biological constraints will improve the prediction of fixation sequences. Our results suggest that information maximization is a useful principle for programming eye movements.

  7. Differences between Perception and Eye Movements during Complex Motions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holly, Jan E.; Davis, Saralin M.; Sullivan, Kelly E.

    2013-01-01

    During passive whole-body motion in the dark, the motion perceived by subjects may or may not be veridical. Either way, reflexive eye movements are typically compensatory for the perceived motion. However, studies are discovering that for certain motions, the perceived motion and eye movements are incompatible. The incompatibility has not been explained by basic differences in gain or time constants of decay. This paper uses three-dimensional modeling to investigate gondola centrifugation (with a tilting carriage) and off-vertical axis rotation. The first goal was to determine whether known differences between perceived motions and eye movements are true differences when all three-dimensional combinations of angular and linear components are considered. The second goal was to identify the likely areas of processing in which perceived motions match or differ from eye movements, whether in angular components, linear components and/or dynamics. The results were that perceived motions are more compatible with eye movements in three dimensions than the one-dimensional components indicate, and that they differ more in their linear than their angular components. In addition, while eye movements are consistent with linear filtering processes, perceived motion has dynamics that cannot be explained by basic differences in time constants, filtering, or standard GIF-resolution processes. PMID:21846952

  8. Binocular contrast discrimination needs monocular multiplicative noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ding, Jian; Levi, Dennis M.

    2016-01-01

    The effects of signal and noise on contrast discrimination are difficult to separate because of a singularity in the signal-detection-theory model of two-alternative forced-choice contrast discrimination (Katkov, Tsodyks, & Sagi, 2006). In this article, we show that it is possible to eliminate the singularity by combining that model with a binocular combination model to fit monocular, dichoptic, and binocular contrast discrimination. We performed three experiments using identical stimuli to measure the perceived phase, perceived contrast, and contrast discrimination of a cyclopean sine wave. In the absence of a fixation point, we found a binocular advantage in contrast discrimination both at low contrasts (discrimination mechanisms: a nonlinear contrast transducer and multiplicative noise (MN). A binocular combination model (the DSKL model; Ding, Klein, & Levi, 2013b) was first fitted to both the perceived-phase and the perceived-contrast data sets, then combined with either the nonlinear contrast transducer or the MN mechanism to fit the contrast-discrimination data. We found that the best model combined the DSKL model with early MN. Model simulations showed that, after going through interocular suppression, the uncorrelated noise in the two eyes became anticorrelated, resulting in less binocular noise and therefore a binocular advantage in the discrimination task. Combining a nonlinear contrast transducer or MN with a binocular combination model (DSKL) provides a powerful method for evaluating the two putative contrast-discrimination mechanisms. PMID:26982370

  9. iTemplate: A template-based eye movement data analysis approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiao, Naiqi G; Lee, Kang

    2018-02-08

    Current eye movement data analysis methods rely on defining areas of interest (AOIs). Due to the fact that AOIs are created and modified manually, variances in their size, shape, and location are unavoidable. These variances affect not only the consistency of the AOI definitions, but also the validity of the eye movement analyses based on the AOIs. To reduce the variances in AOI creation and modification and achieve a procedure to process eye movement data with high precision and efficiency, we propose a template-based eye movement data analysis method. Using a linear transformation algorithm, this method registers the eye movement data from each individual stimulus to a template. Thus, users only need to create one set of AOIs for the template in order to analyze eye movement data, rather than creating a unique set of AOIs for all individual stimuli. This change greatly reduces the error caused by the variance from manually created AOIs and boosts the efficiency of the data analysis. Furthermore, this method can help researchers prepare eye movement data for some advanced analysis approaches, such as iMap. We have developed software (iTemplate) with a graphic user interface to make this analysis method available to researchers.

  10. Detection of cortical activities on eye movement using functional magnetic resonance imaging

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yoshida, Masaki; Kawai, Kazushige; Kitahara, Kenji; Soulie, D.; Cordoliani, Y.S.; Iba-Zizen, M.T.; Cabanis, E.A.

    1997-01-01

    Cortical activity during eye movement was examined with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Horizontal saccadic eye movements and smooth pursuit eye movements were elicited in normal subjects. Activity in the frontal eye field was found during both saccadic and smooth pursuit eye movements at the posterior margin of the middle frontal gyrus and in parts of the precentral sulcus and precentral gyrus bordering the middle frontal gyrus (Brodmann's areas 8, 6, and 9). In addition, activity in the parietal eye field was found in the deep, upper margin of the angular gyrus and of the supramarginal gyrus (Brodmann's areas 39 and 40) during saccadic eye movement. Activity of V5 was found at the intersection of the ascending limb of the inferior temporal sulcus and the lateral occipital sulcus during smooth pursuit eye movement. Our results suggest that functional magnetic resonance imaging is useful for detecting cortical activity during eye movement. (author)

  11. Eye movements and attention in reading, scene perception, and visual search.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rayner, Keith

    2009-08-01

    Eye movements are now widely used to investigate cognitive processes during reading, scene perception, and visual search. In this article, research on the following topics is reviewed with respect to reading: (a) the perceptual span (or span of effective vision), (b) preview benefit, (c) eye movement control, and (d) models of eye movements. Related issues with respect to eye movements during scene perception and visual search are also reviewed. It is argued that research on eye movements during reading has been somewhat advanced over research on eye movements in scene perception and visual search and that some of the paradigms developed to study reading should be more widely adopted in the study of scene perception and visual search. Research dealing with "real-world" tasks and research utilizing the visual-world paradigm are also briefly discussed.

  12. Acting without seeing: eye movements reveal visual processing without awareness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spering, Miriam; Carrasco, Marisa

    2015-04-01

    Visual perception and eye movements are considered to be tightly linked. Diverse fields, ranging from developmental psychology to computer science, utilize eye tracking to measure visual perception. However, this prevailing view has been challenged by recent behavioral studies. Here, we review converging evidence revealing dissociations between the contents of perceptual awareness and different types of eye movement. Such dissociations reveal situations in which eye movements are sensitive to particular visual features that fail to modulate perceptual reports. We also discuss neurophysiological, neuroimaging, and clinical studies supporting the role of subcortical pathways for visual processing without awareness. Our review links awareness to perceptual-eye movement dissociations and furthers our understanding of the brain pathways underlying vision and movement with and without awareness. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. Detection of cortical activities on eye movement using functional magnetic resonance imaging

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yoshida, Masaki; Kawai, Kazushige; Kitahara, Kenji [Jikei Univ., Tokyo (Japan). School of Medicine; Soulie, D.; Cordoliani, Y.S.; Iba-Zizen, M.T.; Cabanis, E.A.

    1997-11-01

    Cortical activity during eye movement was examined with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Horizontal saccadic eye movements and smooth pursuit eye movements were elicited in normal subjects. Activity in the frontal eye field was found during both saccadic and smooth pursuit eye movements at the posterior margin of the middle frontal gyrus and in parts of the precentral sulcus and precentral gyrus bordering the middle frontal gyrus (Brodmann`s areas 8, 6, and 9). In addition, activity in the parietal eye field was found in the deep, upper margin of the angular gyrus and of the supramarginal gyrus (Brodmann`s areas 39 and 40) during saccadic eye movement. Activity of V5 was found at the intersection of the ascending limb of the inferior temporal sulcus and the lateral occipital sulcus during smooth pursuit eye movement. Our results suggest that functional magnetic resonance imaging is useful for detecting cortical activity during eye movement. (author)

  14. Eye Movement Abnormalities in Multiple Sclerosis: Pathogenesis, Modeling, and Treatment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alessandro Serra

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Multiple sclerosis (MS commonly causes eye movement abnormalities that may have a significant impact on patients’ disability. Inflammatory demyelinating lesions, especially occurring in the posterior fossa, result in a wide range of disorders, spanning from acquired pendular nystagmus (APN to internuclear ophthalmoplegia (INO, among the most common. As the control of eye movements is well understood in terms of anatomical substrate and underlying physiological network, studying ocular motor abnormalities in MS provides a unique opportunity to gain insights into mechanisms of disease. Quantitative measurement and modeling of eye movement disorders, such as INO, may lead to a better understanding of common symptoms encountered in MS, such as Uhthoff’s phenomenon and fatigue. In turn, the pathophysiology of a range of eye movement abnormalities, such as APN, has been clarified based on correlation of experimental model with lesion localization by neuroimaging in MS. Eye movement disorders have the potential of being utilized as structural and functional biomarkers of early cognitive deficit, and possibly help in assessing disease status and progression, and to serve as platform and functional outcome to test novel therapeutic agents for MS. Knowledge of neuropharmacology applied to eye movement dysfunction has guided testing and use of a number of pharmacological agents to treat some eye movement disorders found in MS, such as APN and other forms of central nystagmus.

  15. The effect of Bangerter filters on binocular function in observers with amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Zidong; Li, Jinrong; Thompson, Benjamin; Deng, Daming; Yuan, Junpeng; Chan, Lily; Hess, Robert F; Yu, Minbin

    2014-10-28

    We assessed whether partial occlusion of the nonamblyopic eye with Bangerter filters can immediately reduce suppression and promote binocular summation of contrast in observers with amblyopia. In Experiment 1, suppression was measured for 22 observers (mean age, 20 years; range, 14-32 years; 10 females) with strabismic or anisometropic amblyopia and 10 controls using our previously established "balance point" protocol. Measurements were made at baseline and with 0.6-, 0.4-, and 0.2-strength Bangerter filters placed over the nonamblyopic/dominant eye. In Experiment 2, psychophysical measurements of contrast sensitivity were made under binocular and monocular viewing conditions for 25 observers with anisometropic amblyopia (mean age, 17 years; range, 11-28 years; 14 females) and 22 controls (mean age, 24 years; range, 22-27; 12 female). Measurements were made at baseline, and with 0.4- and 0.2-strength Bangerter filters placed over the nonamblyopic/dominant eye. Binocular summation ratios (BSRs) were calculated at baseline and with Bangerter filters in place. Experiment 1: Bangerter filters reduced suppression in observers with amblyopia and induced suppression in controls (P = 0.025). The 0.2-strength filter eliminated suppression in observers with amblyopia and this was not a visual acuity effect. Experiment 2: Bangerter filters were able to induce normal levels of binocular contrast summation in the group of observers with anisometropic amblyopia for a stimulus with a spatial frequency of 3 cycles per degree (cpd, P = 0.006). The filters reduced binocular summation in controls. Bangerter filters can immediately reduce suppression and promote binocular summation for mid/low spatial frequencies in observers with amblyopia. Copyright 2014 The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Inc.

  16. Learning rational temporal eye movement strategies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoppe, David; Rothkopf, Constantin A

    2016-07-19

    During active behavior humans redirect their gaze several times every second within the visual environment. Where we look within static images is highly efficient, as quantified by computational models of human gaze shifts in visual search and face recognition tasks. However, when we shift gaze is mostly unknown despite its fundamental importance for survival in a dynamic world. It has been suggested that during naturalistic visuomotor behavior gaze deployment is coordinated with task-relevant events, often predictive of future events, and studies in sportsmen suggest that timing of eye movements is learned. Here we establish that humans efficiently learn to adjust the timing of eye movements in response to environmental regularities when monitoring locations in the visual scene to detect probabilistically occurring events. To detect the events humans adopt strategies that can be understood through a computational model that includes perceptual and acting uncertainties, a minimal processing time, and, crucially, the intrinsic costs of gaze behavior. Thus, subjects traded off event detection rate with behavioral costs of carrying out eye movements. Remarkably, based on this rational bounded actor model the time course of learning the gaze strategies is fully explained by an optimal Bayesian learner with humans' characteristic uncertainty in time estimation, the well-known scalar law of biological timing. Taken together, these findings establish that the human visual system is highly efficient in learning temporal regularities in the environment and that it can use these regularities to control the timing of eye movements to detect behaviorally relevant events.

  17. The improvement of movement and speech during rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder in multiple system atrophy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Cock, Valérie Cochen; Debs, Rachel; Oudiette, Delphine; Leu, Smaranda; Radji, Fatai; Tiberge, Michel; Yu, Huan; Bayard, Sophie; Roze, Emmanuel; Vidailhet, Marie; Dauvilliers, Yves; Rascol, Olivier; Arnulf, Isabelle

    2011-03-01

    Multiple system atrophy is an atypical parkinsonism characterized by severe motor disabilities that are poorly levodopa responsive. Most patients develop rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder. Because parkinsonism is absent during rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder in patients with Parkinson's disease, we studied the movements of patients with multiple system atrophy during rapid eye movement sleep. Forty-nine non-demented patients with multiple system atrophy and 49 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease were interviewed along with their 98 bed partners using a structured questionnaire. They rated the quality of movements, vocal and facial expressions during rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder as better than, equal to or worse than the same activities in an awake state. Sleep and movements were monitored using video-polysomnography in 22/49 patients with multiple system atrophy and in 19/49 patients with Parkinson's disease. These recordings were analysed for the presence of parkinsonism and cerebellar syndrome during rapid eye movement sleep movements. Clinical rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder was observed in 43/49 (88%) patients with multiple system atrophy. Reports from the 31/43 bed partners who were able to evaluate movements during sleep indicate that 81% of the patients showed some form of improvement during rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder. These included improved movement (73% of patients: faster, 67%; stronger, 52%; and smoother, 26%), improved speech (59% of patients: louder, 55%; more intelligible, 17%; and better articulated, 36%) and normalized facial expression (50% of patients). The rate of improvement was higher in Parkinson's disease than in multiple system atrophy, but no further difference was observed between the two forms of multiple system atrophy (predominant parkinsonism versus cerebellar syndrome). Video-monitored movements during rapid eye movement sleep in patients with multiple system

  18. Neuregulin-1 genotypes and eye movements in schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Haraldsson, H.M.; Ettinger, U.; Magnusdottir, B.B.

    2010-01-01

    Neuregulin-1 (NRG-1) is a putative susceptibility gene for schizophrenia but the neurocognitive processes that may involve NRG-1 in schizophrenia are unknown. Deficits in antisaccade (AS) and smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) are promising endophenotypes, which may be associated with brain...... findings of impaired AS and SPEM performance in schizophrenia patients (all P eye movement variables...

  19. Contextual effects on smooth-pursuit eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spering, Miriam; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

    2007-02-01

    Segregating a moving object from its visual context is particularly relevant for the control of smooth-pursuit eye movements. We examined the interaction between a moving object and a stationary or moving visual context to determine the role of the context motion signal in driving pursuit. Eye movements were recorded from human observers to a medium-contrast Gaussian dot that moved horizontally at constant velocity. A peripheral context consisted of two vertically oriented sinusoidal gratings, one above and one below the stimulus trajectory, that were either stationary or drifted into the same or opposite direction as that of the target at different velocities. We found that a stationary context impaired pursuit acceleration and velocity and prolonged pursuit latency. A drifting context enhanced pursuit performance, irrespective of its motion direction. This effect was modulated by context contrast and orientation. When a context was briefly perturbed to move faster or slower eye velocity changed accordingly, but only when the context was drifting along with the target. Perturbing a context into the direction orthogonal to target motion evoked a deviation of the eye opposite to the perturbation direction. We therefore provide evidence for the use of absolute and relative motion cues, or motion assimilation and motion contrast, for the control of smooth-pursuit eye movements.

  20. Eye movement accuracy determines natural interception strategies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fooken, Jolande; Yeo, Sang-Hoon; Pai, Dinesh K; Spering, Miriam

    2016-11-01

    Eye movements aid visual perception and guide actions such as reaching or grasping. Most previous work on eye-hand coordination has focused on saccadic eye movements. Here we show that smooth pursuit eye movement accuracy strongly predicts both interception accuracy and the strategy used to intercept a moving object. We developed a naturalistic task in which participants (n = 42 varsity baseball players) intercepted a moving dot (a "2D fly ball") with their index finger in a designated "hit zone." Participants were instructed to track the ball with their eyes, but were only shown its initial launch (100-300 ms). Better smooth pursuit resulted in more accurate interceptions and determined the strategy used for interception, i.e., whether interception was early or late in the hit zone. Even though early and late interceptors showed equally accurate interceptions, they may have relied on distinct tactics: early interceptors used cognitive heuristics, whereas late interceptors' performance was best predicted by pursuit accuracy. Late interception may be beneficial in real-world tasks as it provides more time for decision and adjustment. Supporting this view, baseball players who were more senior were more likely to be late interceptors. Our findings suggest that interception strategies are optimally adapted to the proficiency of the pursuit system.

  1. Eye movement analysis for activity recognition using electrooculography.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bulling, Andreas; Ward, Jamie A; Gellersen, Hans; Tröster, Gerhard

    2011-04-01

    In this work, we investigate eye movement analysis as a new sensing modality for activity recognition. Eye movement data were recorded using an electrooculography (EOG) system. We first describe and evaluate algorithms for detecting three eye movement characteristics from EOG signals-saccades, fixations, and blinks-and propose a method for assessing repetitive patterns of eye movements. We then devise 90 different features based on these characteristics and select a subset of them using minimum redundancy maximum relevance (mRMR) feature selection. We validate the method using an eight participant study in an office environment using an example set of five activity classes: copying a text, reading a printed paper, taking handwritten notes, watching a video, and browsing the Web. We also include periods with no specific activity (the NULL class). Using a support vector machine (SVM) classifier and person-independent (leave-one-person-out) training, we obtain an average precision of 76.1 percent and recall of 70.5 percent over all classes and participants. The work demonstrates the promise of eye-based activity recognition (EAR) and opens up discussion on the wider applicability of EAR to other activities that are difficult, or even impossible, to detect using common sensing modalities.

  2. Basal ganglia neuronal activity during scanning eye movements in Parkinson's disease.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tomáš Sieger

    Full Text Available The oculomotor role of the basal ganglia has been supported by extensive evidence, although their role in scanning eye movements is poorly understood. Nineteen Parkinsońs disease patients, which underwent implantation of deep brain stimulation electrodes, were investigated with simultaneous intraoperative microelectrode recordings and single channel electrooculography in a scanning eye movement task by viewing a series of colored pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System. Four patients additionally underwent a visually guided saccade task. Microelectrode recordings were analyzed selectively from the subthalamic nucleus, substantia nigra pars reticulata and from the globus pallidus by the WaveClus program which allowed for detection and sorting of individual neurons. The relationship between neuronal firing rate and eye movements was studied by crosscorrelation analysis. Out of 183 neurons that were detected, 130 were found in the subthalamic nucleus, 30 in the substantia nigra and 23 in the globus pallidus. Twenty percent of the neurons in each of these structures showed eye movement-related activity. Neurons related to scanning eye movements were mostly unrelated to the visually guided saccades. We conclude that a relatively large number of basal ganglia neurons are involved in eye motion control. Surprisingly, neurons related to scanning eye movements differed from neurons activated during saccades suggesting functional specialization and segregation of both systems for eye movement control.

  3. Basal ganglia neuronal activity during scanning eye movements in Parkinson's disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sieger, Tomáš; Bonnet, Cecilia; Serranová, Tereza; Wild, Jiří; Novák, Daniel; Růžička, Filip; Urgošík, Dušan; Růžička, Evžen; Gaymard, Bertrand; Jech, Robert

    2013-01-01

    The oculomotor role of the basal ganglia has been supported by extensive evidence, although their role in scanning eye movements is poorly understood. Nineteen Parkinsońs disease patients, which underwent implantation of deep brain stimulation electrodes, were investigated with simultaneous intraoperative microelectrode recordings and single channel electrooculography in a scanning eye movement task by viewing a series of colored pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System. Four patients additionally underwent a visually guided saccade task. Microelectrode recordings were analyzed selectively from the subthalamic nucleus, substantia nigra pars reticulata and from the globus pallidus by the WaveClus program which allowed for detection and sorting of individual neurons. The relationship between neuronal firing rate and eye movements was studied by crosscorrelation analysis. Out of 183 neurons that were detected, 130 were found in the subthalamic nucleus, 30 in the substantia nigra and 23 in the globus pallidus. Twenty percent of the neurons in each of these structures showed eye movement-related activity. Neurons related to scanning eye movements were mostly unrelated to the visually guided saccades. We conclude that a relatively large number of basal ganglia neurons are involved in eye motion control. Surprisingly, neurons related to scanning eye movements differed from neurons activated during saccades suggesting functional specialization and segregation of both systems for eye movement control.

  4. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the frontal eye fields during saccadic eye movements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Miki, Atsushi; Takagi, Mineo; Abe, Haruki; Nakajima, Takashi; Miyauchi, Satoru.

    1996-01-01

    We evaluated activity-induced signal intensity changes in the human cerebral cortex during horizontal saccadic eye movements using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) based on the blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) contrast method. Compared with central fixation, significant signal increases were observed bilaterally in the middle frontal gyrus (Brodmann area 8) during saccadic conditions. The location of the activated area was consistent with that of previously reported frontal eye fields (FEF). These results suggest that fMRI has potential merit for the study of cortical control of eye movements in humans. (author)

  5. Quantification of vestibular-induced eye movements in zebrafish larvae

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mo Weike

    2010-09-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Vestibular reflexes coordinate movements or sensory input with changes in body or head position. Vestibular-evoked responses that involve the extraocular muscles include the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR, a compensatory eye movement to stabilize retinal images. Although an angular VOR attributable to semicircular canal stimulation was reported to be absent in free-swimming zebrafish larvae, recent studies reveal that vestibular-induced eye movements can be evoked in zebrafish larvae by both static tilts and dynamic rotations that tilt the head with respect to gravity. Results We have determined herein the basis of sensitivity of the larval eye movements with respect to vestibular stimulus, developmental stage, and sensory receptors of the inner ear. For our experiments, video recordings of larvae rotated sinusoidally at 0.25 Hz were analyzed to quantitate eye movements under infrared illumination. We observed a robust response that appeared as early as 72 hours post fertilization (hpf, which increased in amplitude over time. Unlike rotation about an earth horizontal axis, rotation about an earth vertical axis at 0.25 Hz did not evoke eye movements. Moreover, vestibular-induced responses were absent in mutant cdh23 larvae and larvae lacking anterior otoliths. Conclusions Our results provide evidence for a functional vestibulo-oculomotor circuit in 72 hpf zebrafish larvae that relies upon sensory input from anterior/utricular otolith organs.

  6. A competitive integration model of exogenous and endogenous eye movements

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Meeter, M.; van der Stigchel, S.; Theeuwes, J.

    2010-01-01

    We present a model of the eye movement system in which the programming of an eye movement is the result of the competitive integration of information in the superior colliculi (SC). This brain area receives input from occipital cortex, the frontal eye fields, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex,

  7. Impaired Saccadic Eye Movement in Primary Open-angle Glaucoma

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lamirel, Cédric; Milea, Dan; Cochereau, Isabelle

    2013-01-01

    PURPOSE:: Our study aimed at investigating the extent to which saccadic eye movements are disrupted in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). This approach followed upon the discovery of differences in the eye-movement behavior of POAG patients during the exploration of complex visual...

  8. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR as a Neurorehabilitation Method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Afsaneh Zarghi

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available   A variety of nervous system components such as medulla, pons, midbrain, cerebellum, basal ganglia, parietal, frontal and occipital lobes have role in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR processes. The eye movement is done simultaneously for attracting client's attention to an external stimulus while concentrating on a certain internal subject. Eye movement guided by therapist is the most common attention stimulus. The role of eye movement has been documented previously in relation with cognitive processing mechanisms. A series of systemic experiments have shown that the eyes’ spontaneous movement is associated with emotional and cognitive changes and results in decreased excitement, flexibility in attention, memory processing, and enhanced semantic recalling. Eye movement also decreases the memory's image clarity and the accompanying excitement. By using EMDR, we can reach some parts of memory which were inaccessible before and also emotionally intolerable. Various researches emphasize on the effectiveness of EMDR in treating and curing phobias, pains, and dependent personality disorders. Consequently, due to the involvement of multiple neural system components, this palliative method of treatment can also help to rehabilitate the neuro-cognitive system.

  9. Lateral information transfer across saccadic eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jüttner, M; Röhler, R

    1993-02-01

    Our perception of the visual world remains stable and continuous despite the disruptions caused by retinal image displacements during saccadic eye movements. The problem of visual stability is closely related to the question of whether information is transferred across such eye movements--and if so, what sort of information is transferred. We report experiments carried out to investigate how presaccadic signals at the location of the saccade goal influence the visibility of postsaccadic test signals presented at the fovea. The signals were Landolt rings of different orientations. If the orientations of pre- and postsaccadic Landolt rings were different, the thresholds of the test signals were elevated by about 20%-25% relative to those at the static control condition. When the orientations were identical, no such elevation occurred. This selective threshold elevation effect proved to be a phenomenon different from ordinary saccadic suppression, although it was closely related to the execution of the saccadic eye movement. The consequences for visual stability are discussed.

  10. Effect of Visual Angle on the Head Movement Caused by Changing Binocular Disparity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Toru Maekawa

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available It has been shown that vertical binocular disparity has no or little effect on the perception of visual direction (Banks et al., 2002. On the other hand, our previous study has reported that a continuous change of vertical disparity causes an involuntary sway of the head (Maekawa et al., 2009. We predict that the difference between those results attributes to the dissociation between the processes for perception and action in the brain. The aim of this study is to investigate in more details the condition that influences the process of disparity information. The present experiment particularly varied the visual angle of stimulus presentation and measured the head movement and body sway caused by changing vertical disparity. Results showed that the head movement was greater as the visual angle of the stimulus was smaller. It has been reported that stimulus of only small visual angle affect depth perception (Erklens et al., 1995. Thus, our result suggests that perception and action produced by vertical disparity are consistent as far as the effect of the stimulus size is concerned.

  11. Retinal image registration for eye movement estimation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kolar, Radim; Tornow, Ralf P; Odstrcilik, Jan

    2015-01-01

    This paper describes a novel methodology for eye fixation measurement using a unique videoophthalmoscope setup and advanced image registration approach. The representation of the eye movements via Poincare plot is also introduced. The properties, limitations and perspective of this methodology are finally discussed.

  12. Extracting information of fixational eye movements through pupil tracking

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiao, JiangWei; Qiu, Jian; Luo, Kaiqin; Peng, Li; Han, Peng

    2018-01-01

    Human eyes are never completely static even when they are fixing a stationary point. These irregular, small movements, which consist of micro-tremors, micro-saccades and drifts, can prevent the fading of the images that enter our eyes. The importance of researching the fixational eye movements has been experimentally demonstrated recently. However, the characteristics of fixational eye movements and their roles in visual process have not been explained clearly, because these signals can hardly be completely extracted by now. In this paper, we developed a new eye movement detection device with a high-speed camera. This device includes a beam splitter mirror, an infrared light source and a high-speed digital video camera with a frame rate of 200Hz. To avoid the influence of head shaking, we made the device wearable by fixing the camera on a safety helmet. Using this device, the experiments of pupil tracking were conducted. By localizing the pupil center and spectrum analysis, the envelope frequency spectrum of micro-saccades, micro-tremors and drifts are shown obviously. The experimental results show that the device is feasible and effective, so that the device can be applied in further characteristic analysis.

  13. Interventions for disorders of eye movement in patients with stroke

    OpenAIRE

    Pollock, A.; Hazelton, C.; Henderson, C.A.; Angilley, J.; Dhillon, B.; Langhorne, P.; Livingstone, K.; Munro, F.A.; Orr, H.; Rowe, F.J.; Shahani, U.

    2011-01-01

    Background Eye movement disorders may affect over 70% of stroke patients. These eye movement disorders can result in difficulty maintaining the normal ocular position and difficulty moving the eyes appropriately. The resulting functional disabilities include a loss of depth perception, reduced hand-to-eye co-ordination, marked difficulties with near tasks and reading and reduced ability to scan the visual environment. They can also impact on the effectiveness of rehabilitation therapy. There ...

  14. Semantic guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hwang, Alex D; Wang, Hsueh-Cheng; Pomplun, Marc

    2011-05-25

    The perception of objects in our visual world is influenced by not only their low-level visual features such as shape and color, but also their high-level features such as meaning and semantic relations among them. While it has been shown that low-level features in real-world scenes guide eye movements during scene inspection and search, the influence of semantic similarity among scene objects on eye movements in such situations has not been investigated. Here we study guidance of eye movements by semantic similarity among objects during real-world scene inspection and search. By selecting scenes from the LabelMe object-annotated image database and applying latent semantic analysis (LSA) to the object labels, we generated semantic saliency maps of real-world scenes based on the semantic similarity of scene objects to the currently fixated object or the search target. An ROC analysis of these maps as predictors of subjects' gaze transitions between objects during scene inspection revealed a preference for transitions to objects that were semantically similar to the currently inspected one. Furthermore, during the course of a scene search, subjects' eye movements were progressively guided toward objects that were semantically similar to the search target. These findings demonstrate substantial semantic guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes and show its importance for understanding real-world attentional control. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Constraining eye movement in individuals with Parkinson's disease during walking turns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ambati, V N Pradeep; Saucedo, Fabricio; Murray, Nicholas G; Powell, Douglas W; Reed-Jones, Rebecca J

    2016-10-01

    Walking and turning is a movement that places individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) at increased risk for fall-related injury. However, turning is an essential movement in activities of daily living, making up to 45 % of the total steps taken in a given day. Hypotheses regarding how turning is controlled suggest an essential role of anticipatory eye movements to provide feedforward information for body coordination. However, little research has investigated control of turning in individuals with PD with specific consideration for eye movements. The purpose of this study was to examine eye movement behavior and body segment coordination in individuals with PD during walking turns. Three experimental groups, a group of individuals with PD, a group of healthy young adults (YAC), and a group of healthy older adults (OAC), performed walking and turning tasks under two visual conditions: free gaze and fixed gaze. Whole-body motion capture and eye tracking characterized body segment coordination and eye movement behavior during walking trials. Statistical analysis revealed significant main effects of group (PD, YAC, and OAC) and visual condition (free and fixed gaze) on timing of segment rotation and horizontal eye movement. Within group comparisons, revealed timing of eye and head movement was significantly different between the free and fixed gaze conditions for YAC (p  0.05). In addition, while intersegment timings (reflecting segment coordination) were significantly different for YAC and OAC during free gaze (p training programs for those with PD, possibly promoting better coordination during turning and potentially reducing the risk of falls.

  16. Does consolidation of visuospatial sequence knowledge depend on eye movements?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daphné Coomans

    Full Text Available In the current study, we assessed whether visuospatial sequence knowledge is retained over 24 hours and whether this retention is dependent on the occurrence of eye movements. Participants performed two sessions of a serial reaction time (SRT task in which they had to manually react to the identity of a target letter pair presented in one of four locations around a fixation cross. When the letter pair 'XO' was presented, a left response had to be given, when the letter pair 'OX' was presented, a right response was required. In the Eye Movements (EM condition, eye movements were necessary to perform the task since the fixation cross and the target were separated by at least 9° visual angle. In the No Eye Movements (NEM condition, on the other hand, eye movements were minimized by keeping the distance from the fixation cross to the target below 1° visual angle and by limiting the stimulus presentation to 100 ms. Since the target identity changed randomly in both conditions, no manual response sequence was present in the task. However, target location was structured according to a deterministic sequence in both the EM and NEM condition. Learning of the target location sequence was determined at the end of the first session and 24 hours after initial learning. Results indicated that the sequence learning effect in the SRT task diminished, yet remained significant, over the 24 hour interval in both conditions. Importantly, the difference in eye movements had no impact on the transfer of sequence knowledge. These results suggest that the retention of visuospatial sequence knowledge occurs alike, irrespective of whether this knowledge is supported by eye movements or not.

  17. Visual reinforcement shapes eye movements in visual search.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paeye, Céline; Schütz, Alexander C; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

    2016-08-01

    We use eye movements to gain information about our visual environment; this information can indirectly be used to affect the environment. Whereas eye movements are affected by explicit rewards such as points or money, it is not clear whether the information gained by finding a hidden target has a similar reward value. Here we tested whether finding a visual target can reinforce eye movements in visual search performed in a noise background, which conforms to natural scene statistics and contains a large number of possible target locations. First we tested whether presenting the target more often in one specific quadrant would modify eye movement search behavior. Surprisingly, participants did not learn to search for the target more often in high probability areas. Presumably, participants could not learn the reward structure of the environment. In two subsequent experiments we used a gaze-contingent display to gain full control over the reinforcement schedule. The target was presented more often after saccades into a specific quadrant or a specific direction. The proportions of saccades meeting the reinforcement criteria increased considerably, and participants matched their search behavior to the relative reinforcement rates of targets. Reinforcement learning seems to serve as the mechanism to optimize search behavior with respect to the statistics of the task.

  18. Eye movement training is most effective when it involves a task-relevant sensorimotor decision.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fooken, Jolande; Lalonde, Kathryn M; Mann, Gurkiran K; Spering, Miriam

    2018-04-01

    Eye and hand movements are closely linked when performing everyday actions. We conducted a perceptual-motor training study to investigate mutually beneficial effects of eye and hand movements, asking whether training in one modality benefits performance in the other. Observers had to predict the future trajectory of a briefly presented moving object, and intercept it at its assumed location as accurately as possible with their finger. Eye and hand movements were recorded simultaneously. Different training protocols either included eye movements or a combination of eye and hand movements with or without external performance feedback. Eye movement training did not transfer across modalities: Irrespective of feedback, finger interception accuracy and precision improved after training that involved the hand, but not after isolated eye movement training. Conversely, eye movements benefited from hand movement training or when external performance feedback was given, thus improving only when an active interceptive task component was involved. These findings indicate only limited transfer across modalities. However, they reveal the importance of creating a training task with an active sensorimotor decision to improve the accuracy and precision of eye and hand movements.

  19. Exogenous orienting of attention depends upon the ability to execute eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Daniel T; Rorden, Chris; Jackson, Stephen R

    2004-05-04

    Shifts of attention can be made overtly by moving the eyes or covertly with attention being allocated to a region of space that does not correspond to the current direction of gaze. However, the precise relationship between eye movements and the covert orienting of attention remains controversial. The influential premotor theory proposes that the covert orienting of attention is produced by the programming of (unexecuted) eye movements and thus predicts a strong relationship between the ability to execute eye movements and the operation of spatial attention. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that impaired spatial attention is observed in an individual (AI) who is neurologically healthy but who cannot execute eye movements as a result of a congenital impairment in the elasticity of her eye muscles. This finding provides direct support for the role of the eye-movement system in the covert orienting of attention and suggests that whereas intact cortical structures may be necessary for normal attentional reflexes, they are not sufficient. The ability to move our eyes is essential for the development of normal patterns of spatial attention.

  20. Semantic guidance of eye movements in real-world scenes

    OpenAIRE

    Hwang, Alex D.; Wang, Hsueh-Cheng; Pomplun, Marc

    2011-01-01

    The perception of objects in our visual world is influenced by not only their low-level visual features such as shape and color, but also their high-level features such as meaning and semantic relations among them. While it has been shown that low-level features in real-world scenes guide eye movements during scene inspection and search, the influence of semantic similarity among scene objects on eye movements in such situations has not been investigated. Here we study guidance of eye movemen...

  1. Eye movements characteristics of Chinese dyslexic children in picture searching.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Xu; Jing, Jin; Zou, Xiao-Bing; Wang, Meng-Long; Li, Xiu-Hong; Lin, Ai-Hua

    2008-09-05

    Reading Chinese, a kind of ideogram, relies more on visual cognition. The visuospatial cognitive deficit of Chinese dyslexia is an interesting topic that has received much attention. The purpose of current research was to explore the visuopatial cognitive characteristics of Chinese dyslexic children by studying their eye movements via a picture searching test. According to the diagnostic criteria defined by ICD-10, twenty-eight dyslexic children (mean age (10.12 +/- 1.42) years) were enrolled from the Clinic of Children Behavioral Disorder in the third affiliated hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. And 28 normally reading children (mean age (10.06 +/- 1.29) years), 1:1 matched by age, sex, grade and family condition were chosen from an elementary school in Guangzhou as a control group. Four groups of pictures (cock, accident, canyon, meditate) from Picture Vocabulary Test were chosen as eye movement experiment targets. All the subjects carried out the picture searching task and their eye movement data were recorded by an Eyelink II High-Speed Eye Tracker. The duration time, average fixation duration, average saccade amplitude, fixation counts and saccade counts were compared between the two groups of children. The dyslexic children had longer total fixation duration and average fixation duration (F = 7.711, P < 0.01; F = 4.520, P < 0.05), more fixation counts and saccade counts (F = 7.498, P < 0.01; F = 11.040, P < 0.01), and a smaller average saccade amplitude (F = 29.743, P < 0.01) compared with controls. But their performance in the picture vocabulary test was the same as those of the control group. The eye movement indexes were affected by the difficulty of the pictures and words, all eye movement indexes, except saccade amplitude, had a significant difference within groups (P < 0.05). Chinese dyslexic children have abnormal eye movements in picture searching, applying slow fixations, more fixations and small and frequent saccades. Their abnormal eye movement

  2. Fluid Mixing in the Eye Under Rapid Eye Movement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Jinglin; Gharib, Morteza

    2017-11-01

    Drug injection is an important technique in certain treatments of eye diseases. The efficacy of chemical mixing plays an important role in determining pharmacokinetics of injected drugs. In this study, we build a device to study the chemical mixing behavior in a spherical structure. The mixing process is visualized and analyzed qualitatively. We hope to understand the chemical convection and diffusion behaviors in correlation with controlled rapid mechanical movements. The results will have potential applications in treatment of eye diseases. Resnick Institute at Caltech.

  3. A binocular iPad treatment for amblyopic children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, S L; Jost, R M; Morale, S E; Stager, D R; Dao, L; Stager, D; Birch, E E

    2014-10-01

    Monocular amblyopia treatment (patching or penalization) does not always result in 6/6 vision and amblyopia often recurs. As amblyopia arises from abnormal binocular visual experience, we evaluated the effectiveness of a novel home-based binocular amblyopia treatment. Children (4-12 y) wore anaglyphic glasses to play binocular games on an iPad platform for 4 h/w for 4 weeks. The first 25 children were assigned to sham games and then 50 children to binocular games. Children in the binocular group had the option of participating for an additional 4 weeks. Compliance was monitored with calendars and tracking fellow eye contrast settings. About half of the children in each group were also treated with patching at a different time of day. Best-corrected visual acuity, suppression, and stereoacuity were measured at baseline, at the 4- and 8-week outcome visits, and 3 months after cessation of treatment. Mean (±SE) visual acuity improved in the binocular group from 0.47±0.03 logMAR at baseline to 0.39±0.03 logMAR at 4 weeks (P<0.001); there was no significant change for the sham group. The effect of binocular games on visual acuity did not differ for children who were patched vs those who were not. The median stereoacuity remained unchanged in both groups. An additional 4 weeks of treatment did not yield additional visual acuity improvement. Visual acuity improvements were maintained for 3 months after the cessation of treatment. Binocular iPad treatment rapidly improved visual acuity, and visual acuity was stable for at least 3 months following the cessation of treatment.

  4. Eye movements in patients with Whiplash Associated Disorders: A systematic review

    OpenAIRE

    Ischebeck, B.; Vries, Jurryt; Geest, Jos; Janssen, Malou; Wingerden, Jan-Paul; Kleinrensink, Gert Jan; Frens, Maarten

    2016-01-01

    textabstractBackground: Many people with Whiplash Associated Disorders (WAD) report problems with vision, some of which may be due to impaired eye movements. Better understanding of such impaired eye movements could improve diagnostics and treatment strategies. This systematic review surveys the current evidence on changes in eye movements of patients with WAD and explains how the oculomotor system is tested. Methods: Nine electronic data bases were searched for relevant articles from incepti...

  5. Eying the future: Eye movement in past and future thinking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    El Haj, Mohamad; Lenoble, Quentin

    2017-06-07

    We investigated eye movement during past and future thinking. Participants were invited to retrieve past events and to imagine future events while their scan path was recorded by an eye-tracker. Past thinking triggered more fixation (p thinking. Past and future thinking triggered a similar duration of fixations and saccades, as well as a similar amplitude of saccades. Interestingly, participants rated past thinking as more vivid than future thinking (p thinking seems to be accompanied by an increased number of fixations and saccades. Fixations and saccades in past thinking can be interpreted as an attempt by the visual system to find (through saccades) and activate (through fixations) stored memory representations. The same interpretation can be applied to future thinking as this ability requires activation of past experiences. However, future thinking triggers fewer fixations and saccades than past thinking: this may be due to its decreased demand on visual imagery, but could also be related to a potentially deleterious effect of eye movements on spatial imagery required for future thinking. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. An ocular biomechanic model for dynamic simulation of different eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iskander, J; Hossny, M; Nahavandi, S; Del Porto, L

    2018-04-11

    Simulating and analysing eye movement is useful for assessing visual system contribution to discomfort with respect to body movements, especially in virtual environments where simulation sickness might occur. It can also be used in the design of eye prosthesis or humanoid robot eye. In this paper, we present two biomechanic ocular models that are easily integrated into the available musculoskeletal models. The model was previously used to simulate eye-head coordination. The models are used to simulate and analyse eye movements. The proposed models are based on physiological and kinematic properties of the human eye. They incorporate an eye-globe, orbital suspension tissues and six muscles with their connective tissues (pulleys). Pulleys were incorporated in rectus and inferior oblique muscles. The two proposed models are the passive pulleys and the active pulleys models. Dynamic simulations of different eye movements, including fixation, saccade and smooth pursuit, are performed to validate both models. The resultant force-length curves of the models were similar to the experimental data. The simulation results show that the proposed models are suitable to generate eye movement simulations with results comparable to other musculoskeletal models. The maximum kinematic root mean square error (RMSE) is 5.68° and 4.35° for the passive and active pulley models, respectively. The analysis of the muscle forces showed realistic muscle activation with increased muscle synergy in the active pulley model. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  7. Binocular treatment of amblyopia using videogames (BRAVO): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Cindy X; Babu, Raiju J; Black, Joanna M; Bobier, William R; Lam, Carly S Y; Dai, Shuan; Gao, Tina Y; Hess, Robert F; Jenkins, Michelle; Jiang, Yannan; Kowal, Lionel; Parag, Varsha; South, Jayshree; Staffieri, Sandra Elfride; Walker, Natalie; Wadham, Angela; Thompson, Benjamin

    2016-10-18

    Amblyopia is a common neurodevelopmental disorder of vision that is characterised by visual impairment in one eye and compromised binocular visual function. Existing evidence-based treatments for children include patching the nonamblyopic eye to encourage use of the amblyopic eye. Currently there are no widely accepted treatments available for adults with amblyopia. The aim of this trial is to assess the efficacy of a new binocular, videogame-based treatment for amblyopia in older children and adults. We hypothesise that binocular treatment will significantly improve amblyopic eye visual acuity relative to placebo treatment. The BRAVO study is a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled multicentre trial to assess the effectiveness of a novel videogame-based binocular treatment for amblyopia. One hundred and eight participants aged 7 years or older with anisometropic and/or strabismic amblyopia (defined as ≥0.2 LogMAR interocular visual acuity difference, ≥0.3 LogMAR amblyopic eye visual acuity and no ocular disease) will be recruited via ophthalmologists, optometrists, clinical record searches and public advertisements at five sites in New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong and Australia. Eligible participants will be randomised by computer in a 1:1 ratio, with stratification by age group: 7-12, 13-17 and 18 years and older. Participants will be randomised to receive 6 weeks of active or placebo home-based binocular treatment. Treatment will be in the form of a modified interactive falling-blocks game, implemented on a 5th generation iPod touch device viewed through red/green anaglyphic glasses. Participants and those assessing outcomes will be blinded to group assignment. The primary outcome is the change in best-corrected distance visual acuity in the amblyopic eye from baseline to 6 weeks post randomisation. Secondary outcomes include distance and near visual acuity, stereopsis, interocular suppression, angle of strabismus (where applicable) measured at

  8. The selective disruption of spatial working memory by eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Postle, Bradley R; Idzikowski, Christopher; Sala, Sergio Della; Logie, Robert H; Baddeley, Alan D

    2006-01-01

    In the late 1970s/early 1980s, Baddeley and colleagues conducted a series of experiments investigating the role of eye movements in visual working memory. Although only described briefly in a book, these studies have influenced a remarkable number of empirical and theoretical developments in fields ranging from experimental psychology to human neuropsychology to nonhuman primate electrophysiology. This paper presents, in full detail, three critical studies from this series, together with a recently performed study that includes a level of eye movement measurement and control that was not available for the older studies. Together, the results demonstrate several facts about the sensitivity of visuospatial working memory to eye movements. First, it is eye movement control, not movement per se, that produces the disruptive effects. Second, these effects are limited to working memory for locations and do not generalize to visual working memory for shapes. Third, they can be isolated to the storage/maintenance components of working memory (e.g., to the delay period of the delayed-recognition task). These facts have important implications for models of visual working memory.

  9. Binocular glaucomatous visual field loss and its impact on visual exploration--a supermarket study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sippel, Katrin; Kasneci, Enkelejda; Aehling, Kathrin; Heister, Martin; Rosenstiel, Wolfgang; Schiefer, Ulrich; Papageorgiou, Elena

    2014-01-01

    Advanced glaucomatous visual field loss may critically interfere with quality of life. The purpose of this study was to (i) assess the impact of binocular glaucomatous visual field loss on a supermarket search task as an example of everyday living activities, (ii) to identify factors influencing the performance, and (iii) to investigate the related compensatory mechanisms. Ten patients with binocular glaucoma (GP), and ten healthy-sighted control subjects (GC) were asked to collect twenty different products chosen randomly in two supermarket racks as quickly as possible. The task performance was rated as "passed" or "failed" with regard to the time per correctly collected item. Based on the performance of control subjects, the threshold value for failing the task was defined as μ+3σ (in seconds per correctly collected item). Eye movements were recorded by means of a mobile eye tracker. Eight out of ten patients with glaucoma and all control subjects passed the task. Patients who failed the task needed significantly longer time (111.47 s ±12.12 s) to complete the task than patients who passed (64.45 s ±13.36 s, t-test, p supermarket task. However, a considerable number of patients, who compensate by frequent glancing towards the VFD, showed successful task performance. Therefore, systematic exploration of the VFD area seems to be a "time-effective" compensatory mechanism during the present supermarket task.

  10. Autobiographical memories become less vivid and emotional after eye movements

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van den Hout, M.; Muris, P.; Salemink, E.; Kindt, M.

    2001-01-01

    Tested whether eye movements during retrieval of emotional memories are followed by less vividness and less emotionality of future recollections; whether this effect is stronger than the effects of a control activity; whether the alleged effects of tapping and eye movements are stronger than a

  11. Searching for Chaos Evidence in Eye Movement Signals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Katarzyna Harezlak

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Most naturally-occurring physical phenomena are examples of nonlinear dynamic systems, the functioning of which attracts many researchers seeking to unveil their nature. The research presented in this paper is aimed at exploring eye movement dynamic features in terms of the existence of chaotic nature. Nonlinear time series analysis methods were used for this purpose. Two time series features were studied: fractal dimension and entropy, by utilising the embedding theory. The methods were applied to the data collected during the experiment with “jumping point” stimulus. Eye movements were registered by means of the Jazz-novo eye tracker. One thousand three hundred and ninety two (1392 time series were defined, based on the horizontal velocity of eye movements registered during imposed, prolonged fixations. In order to conduct detailed analysis of the signal and identify differences contributing to the observed patterns of behaviour in time scale, fractal dimension and entropy were evaluated in various time series intervals. The influence of the noise contained in the data and the impact of the utilized filter on the obtained results were also studied. The low pass filter was used for the purpose of noise reduction with a 50 Hz cut-off frequency, estimated by means of the Fourier transform and all concerned methods were applied to time series before and after noise reduction. These studies provided some premises, which allow perceiving eye movements as observed chaotic data: characteristic of a space-time separation plot, low and non-integer time series dimension, and the time series entropy characteristic for chaotic systems.

  12. A McCollough Effect Generated at Binocular Site

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qiujie Weng

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available Following exposures to alternating gratings with unique combination of orientation and colors, an achromatic grating would appear tinted with its perceived color contingent on the grating's orientation. This orientation-contingent color after effect is called the McCollough effect. The lack of interocular transfer of the McCollough effect suggests that the McCollough effect is primarily established in monocular channels. Here we explored the possibility that the McCollough effect can be induced at a binocular site. During adaptation, a red vertical grating and a green horizontal grating are dichoptically presented to the two eyes. In the ‘binocular rivalry’ condition, these two gratings were constantly presented throughout the adaptation duration and subjects experienced the rivalry between the two gratings. In the ‘physical alternation’ condition, the two dichoptic gratings physically alternated during adaptation, perceptually similar to binocular rivalry. Interestingly, following dichoptic adaptation either in the rivalry condition or in the physical alternation condition, a binocularly viewed achromatic test grating appeared colored depending on its orientation: a vertical grating appeared greenish and a horizontal grating pinkish. In other words, we observed a McCollough effect following dichoptic adaptation, which can only be explained by a binocular site of orientation-contingent color adaptation.

  13. The influence of emotional picture thematic content on exploratory eye movements

    OpenAIRE

    Carniglia, Elena; Caputi, Marcella; Manfredi, Valentina; Zambarbieri, Daniela; Pessa, Eliano

    2012-01-01

    In picture viewing, emotional vs. neutral stimuli could play a different role in eye movement parameters and in the spatial progression of the scanpath. The aim of this paper is to investigate exploratory behaviour of normal subjects during the vision of emotional vs. non-emotional stimuli, by considering to what extent the thematic content (animate vs. inanimate) is likely to influence the observer’s eye movements. Sixty-five subjects’ eye movement patterns were measured while looking to emo...

  14. Individual differences in impulsivity predict anticipatory eye movements.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laetitia Cirilli

    Full Text Available Impulsivity is the tendency to act without forethought. It is a personality trait commonly used in the diagnosis of many psychiatric diseases. In clinical practice, impulsivity is estimated using written questionnaires. However, answers to questions might be subject to personal biases and misinterpretations. In order to alleviate this problem, eye movements could be used to study differences in decision processes related to impulsivity. Therefore, we investigated correlations between impulsivity scores obtained with a questionnaire in healthy subjects and characteristics of their anticipatory eye movements in a simple smooth pursuit task. Healthy subjects were asked to answer the UPPS questionnaire (Urgency Premeditation Perseverance and Sensation seeking Impulsive Behavior scale, which distinguishes four independent dimensions of impulsivity: Urgency, lack of Premeditation, lack of Perseverance, and Sensation seeking. The same subjects took part in an oculomotor task that consisted of pursuing a target that moved in a predictable direction. This task reliably evoked anticipatory saccades and smooth eye movements. We found that eye movement characteristics such as latency and velocity were significantly correlated with UPPS scores. The specific correlations between distinct UPPS factors and oculomotor anticipation parameters support the validity of the UPPS construct and corroborate neurobiological explanations for impulsivity. We suggest that the oculomotor approach of impulsivity put forth in the present study could help bridge the gap between psychiatry and physiology.

  15. Distractor Interference during Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spering, Miriam; Gegenfurtner, Karl R.; Kerzel, Dirk

    2006-01-01

    When 2 targets for pursuit eye movements move in different directions, the eye velocity follows the vector average (S. G. Lisberger & V. P. Ferrera, 1997). The present study investigates the mechanisms of target selection when observers are instructed to follow a predefined horizontal target and to ignore a moving distractor stimulus. Results show…

  16. A new form of rapid binocular plasticity in adult with amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Jiawei; Thompson, Benjamin; Hess, Robert F

    2013-01-01

    Amblyopia is a neurological disorder of binocular vision affecting up to 3% of the population resulting from a disrupted period of early visual development. Recently, it has been shown that vision can be partially restored by intensive monocular or dichoptic training (4-6 weeks). This can occur even in adults owing to a residual degree of brain plasticity initiated by repetitive and successive sensory stimulation. Here we show that the binocular imbalance that characterizes amblyopia can be reduced by occluding the amblyopic eye with a translucent patch for as little as 2.5 hours, suggesting a degree of rapid binocular plasticity in adults resulting from a lack of sensory stimulation. The integrated binocular benefit is larger in our amblyopic group than in our normal control group. We propose that this rapid improvement in function, as a result of reduced sensory stimulation, represents a new form of plasticity operating at a binocular site.

  17. Hypothesized eye movements of neurolinguistic programming: a statistical artifact.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farmer, A; Rooney, R; Cunningham, J R

    1985-12-01

    Neurolinguistic programming's hypothesized eye-movements were measured independently from videotapes of 30 subjects, aged 15 to 76 yr., who were asked to recall visual pictures, recorded audio sounds, and textural objects. chi 2 indicated that subjects' responses were significantly different from those predicted. When chi 2 comparisons were weighted by number of eye positions assigned to each modality (3 visual, 3 auditory, 1 kinesthetic), subjects' responses did not differ significantly from the expected pattern. These data indicate that the eye-movement hypothesis may represent randomly occurring rather than sensory-modality-related positions.

  18. Differences in Sequential Eye Movement Behavior between Taiwanese and American Viewers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yen Ju eLee

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Knowledge of how information is sought in the visual world is useful for predicting and simulating human behavior. Taiwanese participants and American participants were instructed to judge the facial expression of a focal face that was flanked horizontally by other faces while their eye movements were monitored. The Taiwanese participants distributed their eye fixations more widely than American participants, started to look away from the focal face earlier than American participants, and spent a higher percentage of time looking at the flanking faces. Eye movement transition matrices also provided evidence that Taiwanese participants continually, and systematically shifted gaze between focal and flanking faces. Eye movement patterns were less systematic and less prevalent in American participants. This suggests that both cultures utilized different attention allocation strategies. The results highlight the importance of determining sequential eye movement statistics in cross-cultural research on the utilization of visual context.

  19. Continuous Auditory Feedback of Eye Movements: An Exploratory Study toward Improving Oculomotor Control

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eric O. Boyer

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available As eye movements are mostly automatic and overtly generated to attain visual goals, individuals have a poor metacognitive knowledge of their own eye movements. We present an exploratory study on the effects of real-time continuous auditory feedback generated by eye movements. We considered both a tracking task and a production task where smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM can be endogenously generated. In particular, we used a visual paradigm which enables to generate and control SPEM in the absence of a moving visual target. We investigated whether real-time auditory feedback of eye movement dynamics might improve learning in both tasks, through a training protocol over 8 days. The results indicate that real-time sonification of eye movements can actually modify the oculomotor behavior, and reinforce intrinsic oculomotor perception. Nevertheless, large inter-individual differences were observed preventing us from reaching a strong conclusion on sensorimotor learning improvements.

  20. Depth of Monocular Elements in a Binocular Scene: The Conditions for da Vinci Stereopsis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cook, Michael; Gillam, Barbara

    2004-01-01

    Quantitative depth based on binocular resolution of visibility constraints is demonstrated in a novel stereogram representing an object, visible to 1 eye only, and seen through an aperture or camouflaged against a background. The monocular region in the display is attached to the binocular region, so that the stereogram represents an object which…

  1. Eye mechanics and their implications for eye movement control

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Koene, Ansgar Roald

    2002-01-01

    The topic of this thesis is the investigation of the mechanical properties of the oculomotor system and the implications of these properties for eye movement control. The investigation was conducted by means of computer models and simulations. This allowed us to combine data from anatomy, physiology

  2. Understanding eye movements in face recognition using hidden Markov models.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chuk, Tim; Chan, Antoni B; Hsiao, Janet H

    2014-09-16

    We use a hidden Markov model (HMM) based approach to analyze eye movement data in face recognition. HMMs are statistical models that are specialized in handling time-series data. We conducted a face recognition task with Asian participants, and model each participant's eye movement pattern with an HMM, which summarized the participant's scan paths in face recognition with both regions of interest and the transition probabilities among them. By clustering these HMMs, we showed that participants' eye movements could be categorized into holistic or analytic patterns, demonstrating significant individual differences even within the same culture. Participants with the analytic pattern had longer response times, but did not differ significantly in recognition accuracy from those with the holistic pattern. We also found that correct and wrong recognitions were associated with distinctive eye movement patterns; the difference between the two patterns lies in the transitions rather than locations of the fixations alone. © 2014 ARVO.

  3. Effects of bilateral eye movements on the retrieval of item, associative, and contextual information.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parker, Andrew; Relph, Sarah; Dagnall, Neil

    2008-01-01

    Two experiments are reported that investigate the effects of saccadic bilateral eye movements on the retrieval of item, associative, and contextual information. Experiment 1 compared the effects of bilateral versus vertical versus no eye movements on tests of item recognition, followed by remember-know responses and associative recognition. Supporting previous research, bilateral eye movements enhanced item recognition by increasing the hit rate and decreasing the false alarm rate. Analysis of remember-know responses indicated that eye movement effects were accompanied by increases in remember responses. The test of associative recognition found that bilateral eye movements increased correct responses to intact pairs and decreased false alarms to rearranged pairs. Experiment 2 assessed the effects of eye movements on the recall of intrinsic (color) and extrinsic (spatial location) context. Bilateral eye movements increased correct recall for both types of context. The results are discussed within the framework of dual-process models of memory and the possible neural underpinnings of these effects are considered.

  4. Central crosstalk for somatic tinnitus: abnormal vergence eye movements.

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    Qing Yang

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Frequent oulomotricity problems with orthoptic testing were reported in patients with tinnitus. This study examines with objective recordings vergence eye movements in patients with somatic tinnitus patients with ability to modify their subjective tinnitus percept by various movements, such as jaw, neck, eye movements or skin pressure. METHODS: Vergence eye movements were recorded with the Eyelink II video system in 15 (23-63 years control adults and 19 (36-62 years subjects with somatic tinnitus. FINDINGS: 1 Accuracy of divergence but not of convergence was lower in subjects with somatic tinnitus than in control subjects. 2 Vergence duration was longer and peak velocity was lower in subjects with somatic tinnitus than in control subjects. 3 The number of embedded saccades and the amplitude of saccades coinciding with the peak velocity of vergence were higher for tinnitus subjects. Yet, saccades did not increase peak velocity of vergence for tinnitus subjects, but they did so for controls. 4 In contrast, there was no significant difference of vergence latency between these two groups. INTERPRETATION: The results suggest dysfunction of vergence areas involving cortical-brainstem-cerebellar circuits. We hypothesize that central auditory dysfunction related to tinnitus percept could trigger mild cerebellar-brainstem dysfunction or that tinnitus and vergence dysfunction could both be manifestations of mild cortical-brainstem-cerebellar syndrome reflecting abnormal cross-modality interactions between vergence eye movements and auditory signals.

  5. Contextual effects on motion perception and smooth pursuit eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spering, Miriam; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

    2008-08-15

    Smooth pursuit eye movements are continuous, slow rotations of the eyes that allow us to follow the motion of a visual object of interest. These movements are closely related to sensory inputs from the visual motion processing system. To track a moving object in the natural environment, its motion first has to be segregated from the motion signals provided by surrounding stimuli. Here, we review experiments on the effect of the visual context on motion processing with a focus on the relationship between motion perception and smooth pursuit eye movements. While perception and pursuit are closely linked, we show that they can behave quite distinctly when required by the visual context.

  6. Updating visual memory across eye movements for ocular and arm motor control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thompson, Aidan A; Henriques, Denise Y P

    2008-11-01

    Remembered object locations are stored in an eye-fixed reference frame, so that every time the eyes move, spatial representations must be updated for the arm-motor system to reflect the target's new relative position. To date, studies have not investigated how the brain updates these spatial representations during other types of eye movements, such as smooth-pursuit. Further, it is unclear what information is used in spatial updating. To address these questions we investigated whether remembered locations of pointing targets are updated following smooth-pursuit eye movements, as they are following saccades, and also investigated the role of visual information in estimating eye-movement amplitude for updating spatial memory. Misestimates of eye-movement amplitude were induced when participants visually tracked stimuli presented with a background that moved in either the same or opposite direction of the eye before pointing or looking back to the remembered target location. We found that gaze-dependent pointing errors were similar following saccades and smooth-pursuit and that incongruent background motion did result in a misestimate of eye-movement amplitude. However, the background motion had no effect on spatial updating for pointing, but did when subjects made a return saccade, suggesting that the oculomotor and arm-motor systems may rely on different sources of information for spatial updating.

  7. Binocular glaucomatous visual field loss and its impact on visual exploration--a supermarket study.

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    Katrin Sippel

    Full Text Available Advanced glaucomatous visual field loss may critically interfere with quality of life. The purpose of this study was to (i assess the impact of binocular glaucomatous visual field loss on a supermarket search task as an example of everyday living activities, (ii to identify factors influencing the performance, and (iii to investigate the related compensatory mechanisms. Ten patients with binocular glaucoma (GP, and ten healthy-sighted control subjects (GC were asked to collect twenty different products chosen randomly in two supermarket racks as quickly as possible. The task performance was rated as "passed" or "failed" with regard to the time per correctly collected item. Based on the performance of control subjects, the threshold value for failing the task was defined as μ+3σ (in seconds per correctly collected item. Eye movements were recorded by means of a mobile eye tracker. Eight out of ten patients with glaucoma and all control subjects passed the task. Patients who failed the task needed significantly longer time (111.47 s ±12.12 s to complete the task than patients who passed (64.45 s ±13.36 s, t-test, p < 0.001. Furthermore, patients who passed the task showed a significantly higher number of glances towards the visual field defect (VFD area than patients who failed (t-test, p < 0.05. According to these results, glaucoma patients with defects in the binocular visual field display on average longer search times in a naturalistic supermarket task. However, a considerable number of patients, who compensate by frequent glancing towards the VFD, showed successful task performance. Therefore, systematic exploration of the VFD area seems to be a "time-effective" compensatory mechanism during the present supermarket task.

  8. Measuring miniature eye movements by means of a SQUID magnetometer

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Peters, M.J.; Dunajski, Z.; Meijzssen, T.E.M.; Breukink, E.W.; Wevers-Henke, J.J.

    1982-01-01

    A new technique to measure small eye movements is reported. The precise recording of human eye movements is necessary for research on visual fatigue induced by visual display units.1 So far all methods used have disadvantages: especially those which are sensitive or are rather painful.2,3 Our method

  9. Effects of Saccadic Bilateral Eye Movements on Episodic & Semantic Autobiographical Memory Fluency

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrew eParker

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Performing a sequence of fast saccadic horizontal eye movements has been shown to facilitate performance on a range of cognitive tasks, including the retrieval of episodic memories. One explanation for these effects is based on the hypothesis that saccadic eye movements increase hemispheric interaction, and that such interactions are important for particular types of memory. The aim of the current research was to assess the effect of horizontal saccadic eye movements on the retrieval of both episodic autobiographical memory (event/incident based memory and semantic autobiographical memory (fact based memory over recent and more distant time periods. It was found that saccadic eye movements facilitated the retrieval of episodic autobiographical memories (over all time periods but not semantic autobiographical memories. In addition, eye movements did not enhance the retrieval of non-autobiographical semantic memory. This finding illustrates a dissociation between the episodic and semantic characteristics of personal memory and is considered within the context of hemispheric contributions to episodic memory performance.

  10. Design of a Binocular Pupil and Gaze Point Detection System Utilizing High Definition Images

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yilmaz Durna

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available This study proposes a novel binocular pupil and gaze detection system utilizing a remote full high definition (full HD camera and employing LabVIEW. LabVIEW is inherently parallel and has fewer time-consuming algorithms. Many eye tracker applications are monocular and use low resolution cameras due to real-time image processing difficulties. We utilized the computer’s direct access memory channel for rapid data transmission and processed full HD images with LabVIEW. Full HD images make easier determinations of center coordinates/sizes of pupil and corneal reflection. We modified the camera so that the camera sensor passed only infrared (IR images. Glints were taken as reference points for region of interest (ROI area selection of the eye region in the face image. A morphologic filter was applied for erosion of noise, and a weighted average technique was used for center detection. To test system accuracy with 11 participants, we produced a visual stimulus set up to analyze each eye’s movement. Nonlinear mapping function was utilized for gaze estimation. Pupil size, pupil position, glint position and gaze point coordinates were obtained with free natural head movements in our system. This system also works at 2046 × 1086 resolution at 40 frames per second. It is assumed that 280 frames per second for 640 × 480 pixel images is the case. Experimental results show that the average gaze detection error for 11 participants was 0.76° for the left eye, 0.89° for right eye and 0.83° for the mean of two eyes.

  11. MR-eyetracker: a new method for eye movement recording in functional magnetic resonance imaging.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kimmig, H; Greenlee, M W; Huethe, F; Mergner, T

    1999-06-01

    We present a method for recording saccadic and pursuit eye movements in the magnetic resonance tomograph designed for visual functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments. To reliably classify brain areas as pursuit or saccade related it is important to carefully measure the actual eye movements. For this purpose, infrared light, created outside the scanner by light-emitting diodes (LEDs), is guided via optic fibers into the head coil and onto the eye of the subject. Two additional fiber optical cables pick up the light reflected by the iris. The illuminating and detecting cables are mounted in a plastic eyepiece that is manually lowered to the level of the eye. By means of differential amplification, we obtain a signal that covaries with the horizontal position of the eye. Calibration of eye position within the scanner yields an estimate of eye position with a resolution of 0.2 degrees at a sampling rate of 1000 Hz. Experiments are presented that employ echoplanar imaging with 12 image planes through visual, parietal and frontal cortex while subjects performed saccadic and pursuit eye movements. The distribution of BOLD (blood oxygen level dependent) responses is shown to depend on the type of eye movement performed. Our method yields high temporal and spatial resolution of the horizontal component of eye movements during fMRI scanning. Since the signal is purely optical, there is no interaction between the eye movement signals and the echoplanar images. This reasonably priced eye tracker can be used to control eye position and monitor eye movements during fMRI.

  12. Classification of visual and linguistic tasks using eye-movement features.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coco, Moreno I; Keller, Frank

    2014-03-07

    The role of the task has received special attention in visual-cognition research because it can provide causal explanations of goal-directed eye-movement responses. The dependency between visual attention and task suggests that eye movements can be used to classify the task being performed. A recent study by Greene, Liu, and Wolfe (2012), however, fails to achieve accurate classification of visual tasks based on eye-movement features. In the present study, we hypothesize that tasks can be successfully classified when they differ with respect to the involvement of other cognitive domains, such as language processing. We extract the eye-movement features used by Greene et al. as well as additional features from the data of three different tasks: visual search, object naming, and scene description. First, we demonstrated that eye-movement responses make it possible to characterize the goals of these tasks. Then, we trained three different types of classifiers and predicted the task participants performed with an accuracy well above chance (a maximum of 88% for visual search). An analysis of the relative importance of features for classification accuracy reveals that just one feature, i.e., initiation time, is sufficient for above-chance performance (a maximum of 79% accuracy in object naming). Crucially, this feature is independent of task duration, which differs systematically across the three tasks we investigated. Overall, the best task classification performance was obtained with a set of seven features that included both spatial information (e.g., entropy of attention allocation) and temporal components (e.g., total fixation on objects) of the eye-movement record. This result confirms the task-dependent allocation of visual attention and extends previous work by showing that task classification is possible when tasks differ in the cognitive processes involved (purely visual tasks such as search vs. communicative tasks such as scene description).

  13. The disparate histories of binocular vision and binaural hearing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wade, Nicholas J

    2018-01-01

    Vision and hearing are dependent on disparities of spatial patterns received by two eyes and on time and intensity differences to two ears. However, the experiences of a single world have masked attention to these disparities. While eyes and ears are paired, there has not been parity in the attention directed to their functioning. Phenomena involving binocular vision were commented upon since antiquity whereas those about binaural hearing are much more recent. This history is compared with respect to the experimental manipulations of dichoptic and dichotic stimuli and the instruments used to stimulate the paired organs. Binocular color mixing led to studies of binaural hearing and direction and distance in visual localization were analyzed before those for auditory localization. Experimental investigations began in the nineteenth century with the invention of instruments like the stereoscope and pseudoscope, soon to be followed by their binaural equivalents, the stethophone and pseudophone.

  14. Biometric recognition via texture features of eye movement trajectories in a visual searching task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Chunyong; Xue, Jiguo; Quan, Cheng; Yue, Jingwei; Zhang, Chenggang

    2018-01-01

    Biometric recognition technology based on eye-movement dynamics has been in development for more than ten years. Different visual tasks, feature extraction and feature recognition methods are proposed to improve the performance of eye movement biometric system. However, the correct identification and verification rates, especially in long-term experiments, as well as the effects of visual tasks and eye trackers' temporal and spatial resolution are still the foremost considerations in eye movement biometrics. With a focus on these issues, we proposed a new visual searching task for eye movement data collection and a new class of eye movement features for biometric recognition. In order to demonstrate the improvement of this visual searching task being used in eye movement biometrics, three other eye movement feature extraction methods were also tested on our eye movement datasets. Compared with the original results, all three methods yielded better results as expected. In addition, the biometric performance of these four feature extraction methods was also compared using the equal error rate (EER) and Rank-1 identification rate (Rank-1 IR), and the texture features introduced in this paper were ultimately shown to offer some advantages with regard to long-term stability and robustness over time and spatial precision. Finally, the results of different combinations of these methods with a score-level fusion method indicated that multi-biometric methods perform better in most cases.

  15. Eye movement during recall reduces objective memory performance : An extended replication

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Leer, Arne; Engelhard, Iris M.; Lenaert, Bert; Struyf, Dieter; Vervliet, Bram; Hermans, Dirk

    2017-01-01

    Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder involves making eye movements (EMs) during recall of a traumatic image. Experimental studies have shown that the dual task decreases self-reported memory vividness and emotionality. However valuable, these

  16. Eye movements in patients with Whiplash Associated Disorders: A systematic review

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    B.K. Ischebeck (B.); J. de Vries (Jurryt); J.N. van der Geest (Jos); M. Janssen (Malou); J.-P. van Wingerden (Jan-Paul); G.J. Kleinrensink (Gert Jan); M.A. Frens (Maarten)

    2016-01-01

    textabstractBackground: Many people with Whiplash Associated Disorders (WAD) report problems with vision, some of which may be due to impaired eye movements. Better understanding of such impaired eye movements could improve diagnostics and treatment strategies. This systematic review surveys the

  17. A Dual-Route Perspective on Eye Movements of Dyslexic Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hawelka, Stefan; Gagl, Benjamin; Wimmer, Heinz

    2010-01-01

    This study assessed eye movement abnormalities of adolescent dyslexic readers and interpreted the findings by linking the dual-route model of single word reading with the E-Z Reader model of eye movement control during silent sentence reading. A dysfunction of the lexical route was assumed to account for a reduced number of words which received…

  18. Extending the E-Z Reader Model of Eye Movement Control to Chinese Readers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rayner, Keith; Li, Xingshan; Pollatsek, Alexander

    2007-01-01

    Chinese readers' eye movements were simulated in the context of the E-Z Reader model, which was developed to account for the eye movements of readers of English. Despite obvious differences between English and Chinese, the model did a fairly good job of simulating the eye movements of Chinese readers. The successful simulation suggests that the…

  19. Vestibulo-tactile interactions regarding motion perception and eye movements in yaw

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bos, J.E.; Erp, J.B.F. van; Groen, E.L.; Veen, H.J. van

    2005-01-01

    This paper shows that tactile stimulation can override vestibular information regarding spinning sensations and eye movements. However, we conclude that the current data do not support the hypothesis that tactile stimulation controls eye movements directly. To this end, twenty-four subjects were

  20. Parsing cognition in schizophrenia using saccadic eye movements : a selective overview

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Broerse, A; Crawford, TJ; den Boer, JA

    2001-01-01

    Eye movements provide a behavioural measure of sensorimotor processing and higher cognitive functions of the brain. With the development of novel paradigms that can be used for the study of various cognitive operations, saccadic eye movements in particular. have become increasingly popular. Patients

  1. A new computerized diagnostic algorithm for quantitative evaluation of binocular misalignment in patients with strabismus

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nam, Kyoung Won; Kim, In Young; Kang, Ho Chul; Yang, Hee Kyung; Yoon, Chang Ki; Hwang, Jeong Min; Kim, Young Jae; Kim, Tae Yun; Kim, Kwang Gi

    2012-10-01

    Accurate measurement of binocular misalignment between both eyes is important for proper preoperative management, surgical planning, and postoperative evaluation of patients with strabismus. In this study, we proposed a new computerized diagnostic algorithm that can calculate the angle of binocular eye misalignment photographically by using a dedicated three-dimensional eye model mimicking the structure of the natural human eye. To evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, eight healthy volunteers and eight individuals with strabismus were recruited in this study, the horizontal deviation angle, vertical deviation angle, and angle of eye misalignment were calculated and the angular differences between the healthy and the strabismus groups were evaluated using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney test and the Pearson correlation test. The experimental results demonstrated a statistically significant difference between the healthy and strabismus groups (p = 0.015 0.05). The measurements of the two methods were highly correlated (r = 0.969, p human eye to diagnose non-invasively the severity of strabismus.

  2. Eye movements during object recognition in visual agnosia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Charles Leek, E; Patterson, Candy; Paul, Matthew A; Rafal, Robert; Cristino, Filipe

    2012-07-01

    This paper reports the first ever detailed study about eye movement patterns during single object recognition in visual agnosia. Eye movements were recorded in a patient with an integrative agnosic deficit during two recognition tasks: common object naming and novel object recognition memory. The patient showed normal directional biases in saccades and fixation dwell times in both tasks and was as likely as controls to fixate within object bounding contour regardless of recognition accuracy. In contrast, following initial saccades of similar amplitude to controls, the patient showed a bias for short saccades. In object naming, but not in recognition memory, the similarity of the spatial distributions of patient and control fixations was modulated by recognition accuracy. The study provides new evidence about how eye movements can be used to elucidate the functional impairments underlying object recognition deficits. We argue that the results reflect a breakdown in normal functional processes involved in the integration of shape information across object structure during the visual perception of shape. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. Language-driven anticipatory eye movements in virtual reality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eichert, Nicole; Peeters, David; Hagoort, Peter

    2018-06-01

    Predictive language processing is often studied by measuring eye movements as participants look at objects on a computer screen while they listen to spoken sentences. This variant of the visual-world paradigm has revealed that information encountered by a listener at a spoken verb can give rise to anticipatory eye movements to a target object, which is taken to indicate that people predict upcoming words. The ecological validity of such findings remains questionable, however, because these computer experiments used two-dimensional stimuli that were mere abstractions of real-world objects. Here we present a visual-world paradigm study in a three-dimensional (3-D) immersive virtual reality environment. Despite significant changes in the stimulus materials and the different mode of stimulus presentation, language-mediated anticipatory eye movements were still observed. These findings thus indicate that people do predict upcoming words during language comprehension in a more naturalistic setting where natural depth cues are preserved. Moreover, the results confirm the feasibility of using eyetracking in rich and multimodal 3-D virtual environments.

  4. Suppression of Face Perception during Saccadic Eye Movements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mehrdad Seirafi

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Lack of awareness of a stimulus briefly presented during saccadic eye movement is known as saccadic omission. Studying the reduced visibility of visual stimuli around the time of saccade—known as saccadic suppression—is a key step to investigate saccadic omission. To date, almost all studies have been focused on the reduced visibility of simple stimuli such as flashes and bars. The extension of the results from simple stimuli to more complex objects has been neglected. In two experimental tasks, we measured the subjective and objective awareness of a briefly presented face stimuli during saccadic eye movement. In the first task, we measured the subjective awareness of the visual stimuli and showed that in most of the trials there is no conscious awareness of the faces. In the second task, we measured objective sensitivity in a two-alternative forced choice (2AFC face detection task, which demonstrated chance-level performance. Here, we provide the first evidence of complete suppression of complex visual stimuli during the saccadic eye movement.

  5. Methodological Aspects of Cognitive Rehabilitation with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Afsaneh Zarghi

    2013-02-01

    Full Text Available A variety of nervous system components such as medulla, pons, midbrain, cerebellum, basal ganglia, parietal, frontal and occipital lobes have role in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR processes. The eye movement is done simultaneously for attracting client's attention to an external stimulus while concentrating on a certain internal subject. Eye movement guided by therapist is the most common attention stimulus. The role of eye movement has been documented previously in relation with cognitive processing mechanisms. A series of systemic experiments have shown that the eyes’ spontaneous movement is associated with emotional and cognitive changes and results in decreased excitement, .exibility in attention, memory processing, and enhanced semantic recalling. Eye movement also decreases the memory's image clarity and the accompanying excitement. By using EMDR, we can reach some parts of memory which were inaccessible before and also emotionally intolerable. Various researches emphasize on the effectiveness of EMDR in treating and curing phobias, pains, and dependent personality disorders. Consequently, due to the involvement of multiple neural system components, this palliative method of treatment can also help to rehabilitate the neuro-cognitive system.

  6. Eye Movement Impairment Recovery in a Gaucher Patient Treated with Miglustat

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Agostino Accardo

    2010-01-01

    Two sisters, presenting the same genotype (R353G/R353G, were diagnosed as suffering from GD; one of them later developed neurological alterations identified by quantitative saccadic eye movements analysis. The aim of the study was to quantitatively measure the miglustat effects in this GD neurological patient. Eye movement analysis during subsequent controls was performed by estimating the characteristic parameters of saccadic main sequence. The study demonstrates that the SRT alone can be effective in GD3. Moreover, it confirms that quantitative eye movement analysis is able to precociously identify also slight neurological alterations, permitting more accurate GD classification.

  7. Contact-Free Cognitive Load Recognition Based on Eye Movement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xin Liu

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The cognitive overload not only affects the physical and mental diseases, but also affects the work efficiency and safety. Hence, the research of measuring cognitive load has been an important part of cognitive load theory. In this paper, we proposed a method to identify the state of cognitive load by using eye movement data in a noncontact manner. We designed a visual experiment to elicit human’s cognitive load as high and low state in two light intense environments and recorded the eye movement data in this whole process. Twelve salient features of the eye movement were selected by using statistic test. Algorithms for processing some features are proposed for increasing the recognition rate. Finally we used the support vector machine (SVM to classify high and low cognitive load. The experimental results show that the method can achieve 90.25% accuracy in light controlled condition.

  8. Rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder in patients with narcolepsy is associated with hypocretin-1 deficiency

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Knudsen, Stine; Gammeltoft, Steen; Jennum, Poul J

    2010-01-01

    Rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder is characterized by dream-enacting behaviour and impaired motor inhibition during rapid eye movement sleep. Rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder is commonly associated with neurodegenerative disorders, but also reported in narcolepsy with cataplexy....... Most narcolepsy with cataplexy patients lack the sleep-wake, and rapid eye movement sleep, motor-regulating hypocretin neurons in the lateral hypothalamus. In contrast, rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder and hypocretin deficiency are rare in narcolepsy without cataplexy. We hypothesized...... that rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder coexists with cataplexy in narcolepsy due to hypocretin deficiency. In our study, rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder was diagnosed by the International Classification of Sleep Disorders (2nd edition) criteria in 63 narcolepsy patients with or without...

  9. Acting without seeing: Eye movements reveal visual processing without awareness Miriam Spering & Marisa Carrasco

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spering, Miriam; Carrasco, Marisa

    2015-01-01

    Visual perception and eye movements are considered to be tightly linked. Diverse fields, ranging from developmental psychology to computer science, utilize eye tracking to measure visual perception. However, this prevailing view has been challenged by recent behavioral studies. We review converging evidence revealing dissociations between the contents of perceptual awareness and different types of eye movements. Such dissociations reveal situations in which eye movements are sensitive to particular visual features that fail to modulate perceptual reports. We also discuss neurophysiological, neuroimaging and clinical studies supporting the role of subcortical pathways for visual processing without awareness. Our review links awareness to perceptual-eye movement dissociations and furthers our understanding of the brain pathways underlying vision and movement with and without awareness. PMID:25765322

  10. On the functional order of binocular rivalry and blind spot filling-in.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qian, Cheng S; Brascamp, Jan W; Liu, Taosheng

    2017-07-01

    Binocular rivalry is an important phenomenon for understanding the mechanisms of visual awareness. Here we assessed the functional locus of binocular rivalry relative to blind spot filling-in, which is thought to transpire in V1, thus providing a reference point for assessing the locus of rivalry. We conducted two experiments to explore the functional order of binocular rivalry and blind spot filling-in. Experiment 1 examined if the information filled-in at the blind spot can engage in rivalry with a physical stimulus at the corresponding location in the fellow eye. Participants' perceptual reports showed no difference between this condition and a condition where filling-in was precluded by presenting the same stimuli away from the blind spot, suggesting that the rivalry process is not influenced by any filling-in that might occur. In Experiment 2, we presented the fellow eye's stimulus directly in rivalry with the 'inducer' stimulus that surrounds the blind spot, and compared it with two control conditions away from the blind spot: one involving a ring physically identical to the inducer, and one involving a disc that resembled the filled-in percept. Perceptual reports in the blind spot condition resembled those in the 'ring' condition, more than those in the latter, 'disc' condition, indicating that a perceptually suppressed inducer does not engender filling-in. Thus, our behavioral data suggest binocular rivalry functionally precedes blind spot filling-in. We conjecture that the neural substrate of binocular rivalry suppression includes processing stages at or before V1. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Fixational eye movement: a negligible source of dynamic aberration.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mecê, Pedro; Jarosz, Jessica; Conan, Jean-Marc; Petit, Cyril; Grieve, Kate; Paques, Michel; Meimon, Serge

    2018-02-01

    To evaluate the contribution of fixational eye movements to dynamic aberration, 50 healthy eyes were examined with an original custom-built Shack-Hartmann aberrometer, running at a temporal frequency of 236Hz, with 22 lenslets across a 5mm pupil, synchronized with a 236Hz pupil tracker. A comparison of the dynamic behavior of the first 21 Zernike modes (starting from defocus) with and without digital pupil stabilization, on a 3.4s sequence between blinks, showed that the contribution of fixational eye movements to dynamic aberration is negligible. Therefore we highlighted the fact that a pupil tracker coupled to an Adaptive Optics Ophthalmoscope is not essential to achieve diffraction-limited resolution.

  12. Tracking without perceiving: a dissociation between eye movements and motion perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spering, Miriam; Pomplun, Marc; Carrasco, Marisa

    2011-02-01

    Can people react to objects in their visual field that they do not consciously perceive? We investigated how visual perception and motor action respond to moving objects whose visibility is reduced, and we found a dissociation between motion processing for perception and for action. We compared motion perception and eye movements evoked by two orthogonally drifting gratings, each presented separately to a different eye. The strength of each monocular grating was manipulated by inducing adaptation to one grating prior to the presentation of both gratings. Reflexive eye movements tracked the vector average of both gratings (pattern motion) even though perceptual responses followed one motion direction exclusively (component motion). Observers almost never perceived pattern motion. This dissociation implies the existence of visual-motion signals that guide eye movements in the absence of a corresponding conscious percept.

  13. Eye movement monitoring reveals differential influences of emotion on memory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lily Riggs

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available Research shows that memory for emotional aspects of an event may be enhanced at the cost of impaired memory for surrounding peripheral details. However, this has only been assessed directly via verbal reports which reveal the outcome of a long stream of processing but cannot shed light on how/when emotion may affect the retrieval process. In the present experiment, eye movement monitoring was used as an indirect measure of memory as it can reveal aspects of online memory processing. For example, do emotions modulate the nature of memory representations or the speed with which such memories can be accessed? Participants viewed central negative and neutral scenes surrounded by three neutral objects and after a brief delay, memory was assessed indirectly via eye movement monitoring and then directly via verbal reports. Consistent with the previous literature, emotion enhanced central and impaired peripheral memory as indexed by eye movement scanning and verbal reports. This suggests that eye movement scanning may contribute and/or is related to conscious access of memory. However, the central/peripheral tradeoff effect was not observed in an early measure of eye movement behavior, i.e. participants were faster to orient to a critical region of change in the periphery irrespective of whether it was previously studied in a negative or neutral context. These findings demonstrate emotion’s differential influences on different aspects of retrieval. In particular, emotion appears to affect the detail within, and/or the evaluation of, stored memory representations, but it may not affect the initial access to those representations.

  14. Acting without seeing: Eye movements reveal visual processing without awareness Miriam Spering & Marisa Carrasco

    OpenAIRE

    Spering, Miriam; Carrasco, Marisa

    2015-01-01

    Visual perception and eye movements are considered to be tightly linked. Diverse fields, ranging from developmental psychology to computer science, utilize eye tracking to measure visual perception. However, this prevailing view has been challenged by recent behavioral studies. We review converging evidence revealing dissociations between the contents of perceptual awareness and different types of eye movements. Such dissociations reveal situations in which eye movements are sensitive to part...

  15. Are better eye movements an advantage in ball games? A study of prosaccadic and antisaccadic eye movements

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lenoir, M.; Crevits, L.; Goethals, M.; Wildenbeest, J.; Musch, E.

    2000-01-01

    The aim of this study was to compare prosaccadic and antisaccadic eye movements of experts in ball sports and controls. In the prosaccadic and antisaccadic task, subjects made saccades respectively towards and away from a suddenly appearing stimulus. By means of infrared-oculography, we compared

  16. Effects of saccadic bilateral eye movements on episodic and semantic autobiographical memory fluency.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parker, Andrew; Parkin, Adam; Dagnall, Neil

    2013-01-01

    Performing a sequence of fast saccadic horizontal eye movements has been shown to facilitate performance on a range of cognitive tasks, including the retrieval of episodic memories. One explanation for these effects is based on the hypothesis that saccadic eye movements increase hemispheric interaction, and that such interactions are important for particular types of memory. The aim of the current research was to assess the effect of horizontal saccadic eye movements on the retrieval of both episodic autobiographical memory (event/incident based memory) and semantic autobiographical memory (fact based memory) over recent and more distant time periods. It was found that saccadic eye movements facilitated the retrieval of episodic autobiographical memories (over all time periods) but not semantic autobiographical memories. In addition, eye movements did not enhance the retrieval of non-autobiographical semantic memory. This finding illustrates a dissociation between the episodic and semantic characteristics of personal memory and is considered within the context of hemispheric contributions to episodic memory performance.

  17. Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zoetmulder, Marielle; Jennum, Poul

    2009-01-01

    Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) is characterized by loss of REM sleep and related electromyographic atonia with marked muscular activity and dream enactment behaviour. RBD is seen in 0.5% of the population. It occurs in an idiopathic form and secondarily to medical...

  18. Eye movements during listening reveal spontaneous grammatical processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huette, Stephanie; Winter, Bodo; Matlock, Teenie; Ardell, David H; Spivey, Michael

    2014-01-01

    Recent research using eye-tracking typically relies on constrained visual contexts in particular goal-oriented contexts, viewing a small array of objects on a computer screen and performing some overt decision or identification. Eyetracking paradigms that use pictures as a measure of word or sentence comprehension are sometimes touted as ecologically invalid because pictures and explicit tasks are not always present during language comprehension. This study compared the comprehension of sentences with two different grammatical forms: the past progressive (e.g., was walking), which emphasizes the ongoing nature of actions, and the simple past (e.g., walked), which emphasizes the end-state of an action. The results showed that the distribution and timing of eye movements mirrors the underlying conceptual structure of this linguistic difference in the absence of any visual stimuli or task constraint: Fixations were shorter and saccades were more dispersed across the screen, as if thinking about more dynamic events when listening to the past progressive stories. Thus, eye movement data suggest that visual inputs or an explicit task are unnecessary to solicit analog representations of features such as movement, that could be a key perceptual component to grammatical comprehension.

  19. Eye movements during listening reveal spontaneous grammatical processing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stephanie eHuette

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Recent research using eye-tracking typically relies on constrained visual contexts in particular goal-oriented contexts, viewing a small array of objects on a computer screen and performing some overt decision or identification. Eyetracking paradigms that use pictures as a measure of word or sentence comprehension are sometimes touted as ecologically invalid because pictures and explicit tasks are not always present during language comprehension. This study compared the comprehension of sentences with two different grammatical forms: the past progressive (e.g., was walking, which emphasizes the ongoing nature of actions, and the simple past (e.g., walked, which emphasizes the end-state of an action. The results showed that the distribution and timing of eye movements mirrors the underlying conceptual structure of this linguistic difference in the absence of any visual stimuli or task constraint: Fixations were shorter and saccades were more dispersed across the screen, as if thinking about more dynamic events when listening to the past progressive stories. Thus, eye movement data suggest that visual inputs or an explicit task are unnecessary to solicit analogue representations of features such as movement, that could be a key perceptual component to grammatical comprehension.

  20. The Effect of Sensory Uncertainty Due to Amblyopia (Lazy Eye) on the Planning and Execution of Visually-Guided 3D Reaching Movements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Niechwiej-Szwedo, Ewa; Goltz, Herbert C.; Chandrakumar, Manokaraananthan; Wong, Agnes M. F.

    2012-01-01

    Background Impairment of spatiotemporal visual processing in amblyopia has been studied extensively, but its effects on visuomotor tasks have rarely been examined. Here, we investigate how visual deficits in amblyopia affect motor planning and online control of visually-guided, unconstrained reaching movements. Methods Thirteen patients with mild amblyopia, 13 with severe amblyopia and 13 visually-normal participants were recruited. Participants reached and touched a visual target during binocular and monocular viewing. Motor planning was assessed by examining spatial variability of the trajectory at 50–100 ms after movement onset. Online control was assessed by examining the endpoint variability and by calculating the coefficient of determination (R2) which correlates the spatial position of the limb during the movement to endpoint position. Results Patients with amblyopia had reduced precision of the motor plan in all viewing conditions as evidenced by increased variability of the reach early in the trajectory. Endpoint precision was comparable between patients with mild amblyopia and control participants. Patients with severe amblyopia had reduced endpoint precision along azimuth and elevation during amblyopic eye viewing only, and along the depth axis in all viewing conditions. In addition, they had significantly higher R2 values at 70% of movement time along the elevation and depth axes during amblyopic eye viewing. Conclusion Sensory uncertainty due to amblyopia leads to reduced precision of the motor plan. The ability to implement online corrections depends on the severity of the visual deficit, viewing condition, and the axis of the reaching movement. Patients with mild amblyopia used online control effectively to compensate for the reduced precision of the motor plan. In contrast, patients with severe amblyopia were not able to use online control as effectively to amend the limb trajectory especially along the depth axis, which could be due to their

  1. Visual information transfer across eye movements in the monkey

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Khayat, Paul S.; Spekreijse, Henk; Roelfsema, Pieter R.

    2004-01-01

    During normal viewing, the eyes move from one location to another in order to sample the visual environment. Information acquired before the eye movement facilitates post-saccadic processing. This "preview effect" indicates that some information is maintained in transsaccadic memory and combined

  2. Vibrating makes for better seeing: from the fly's micro eye movements to hyperacute visual sensors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stéphane eViollet

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Active vision means that visual perception not only depends closely on the subject's own movements, but that these movements actually contribute to the visual perceptual processes. Vertebrates' and invertebrates' eye movements are probably part of an active visual process, but their exact role still remains to be determined. In this paper, studies on the retinal micro-movements occurring in the compound eye of the fly are reviewed. Several authors have located and identified the muscles involved in these small retinal movements. Others have established that these retinal micro-movements occur in walking and flying flies, but their exact functional role still remains to be determined. Many robotic studies have been performed in which animals' (flies' and spiders' miniature eye movements have been modelled, simulated and even implemented mechanically. Several robotic platforms have been endowed with artificial visual sensors performing periodic micro-scanning movements. Artificial eyes performing these active retinal micro-movements have some extremely interesting properties, such as hyperacuity and the ability to detect very slow movements (motion hyperacuity. The fundamental role of miniature eye movements still remains to be described in detail, but several studies on natural and artificial eyes have advanced considerably toward this goal.

  3. Social experience does not abolish cultural diversity in eye movements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David J Kelly

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available Adults from Eastern (e.g., China and Western (e.g., USA cultural groups display pronounced differences in a range of visual processing tasks. For example, the eye movement strategies used for information extraction during a variety of face processing tasks (e.g., identification and facial expressions of emotion categorization differs across cultural groups. Currently, many of the differences reported in previous studies have asserted that culture itself is responsible for shaping the way we process visual information, yet this has never been directly investigated. In the current study, we assessed the relative contribution of genetic and cultural factors by testing face processing in a population of British Born Chinese (BBC adults using face recognition and expression classification tasks. Contrary to predictions made by the cultural differences framework, the majority of BBC adults deployed ‘Eastern’ eye movement strategies, while approximately 25% of participants displayed ‘Western’ strategies. Furthermore, the cultural eye movement strategies used by individuals were consistent across recognition and expression tasks. These findings suggest that ‘culture’ alone cannot straightforwardly account for diversity in eye movement patterns. Instead a more complex understanding of how the environment and individual experiences can influence the mechanisms that govern visual processing is required.

  4. How eye movements in EMDR work : Changes in memory vividness and emotionality

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Leer, Arne; Engelhard, Iris M.; Van Den Hout, Marcel A.

    2014-01-01

    Background and objectives Eye movements (EM) during recall of an aversive memory is a treatment element unique to Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Experimental studies have shown that EM reduce memory vividness and/or emotionality shortly after the intervention. However, it is

  5. Recognition method of construction conflict based on driver's eye movement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Yi; Li, Shiwu; Gao, Song; Tan, Derong; Guo, Dong; Wang, Yuqiong

    2018-04-01

    Drivers eye movement data in simulated construction conflicts at different speeds were collected and analyzed to find the relationship between the drivers' eye movement and the construction conflict. On the basis of the relationship between the drivers' eye movement and the construction conflict, the peak point of wavelet processed pupil diameter, the first point on the left side of the peak point and the first blink point after the peak point are selected as key points for locating construction conflict periods. On the basis of the key points and the GSA, a construction conflict recognition method so called the CCFRM is proposed. And the construction conflict recognition speed and location accuracy of the CCFRM are verified. The good performance of the CCFRM verified the feasibility of proposed key points in construction conflict recognition. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. Rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder in patients with narcolepsy is associated with hypocretin-1 deficiency

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Knudsen, Stine; Gammeltoft, Steen; Jennum, Poul J

    2010-01-01

    variables were analysed in relation to cataplexy and hypocretin deficiency with uni- and multivariate logistic/linear regression models, controlling for possible rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder biasing factors (age, gender, disease duration, previous anti-cataplexy medication). Only hypocretin......Rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder is characterized by dream-enacting behaviour and impaired motor inhibition during rapid eye movement sleep. Rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder is commonly associated with neurodegenerative disorders, but also reported in narcolepsy with cataplexy....... Most narcolepsy with cataplexy patients lack the sleep-wake, and rapid eye movement sleep, motor-regulating hypocretin neurons in the lateral hypothalamus. In contrast, rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder and hypocretin deficiency are rare in narcolepsy without cataplexy. We hypothesized...

  7. Effects of Saccadic Bilateral Eye Movements on Episodic and Semantic Autobiographical Memory Fluency

    OpenAIRE

    Parker, Andrew; Parkin, Adam; Dagnall, Neil

    2013-01-01

    Performing a sequence of fast saccadic horizontal eye movements has been shown to facilitate performance on a range of cognitive tasks, including the retrieval of episodic memories. One explanation for these effects is based on the hypothesis that saccadic eye movements increase hemispheric interaction, and that such interactions are important for particular types of memory. The aim of the current research was to assess the effect of horizontal saccadic eye movements on the retrieval of both ...

  8. Effects of reward on the accuracy and dynamics of smooth pursuit eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brielmann, Aenne A; Spering, Miriam

    2015-08-01

    Reward modulates behavioral choices and biases goal-oriented behavior, such as eye or hand movements, toward locations or stimuli associated with higher rewards. We investigated reward effects on the accuracy and timing of smooth pursuit eye movements in 4 experiments. Eye movements were recorded in participants tracking a moving visual target on a computer monitor. Before target motion onset, a monetary reward cue indicated whether participants could earn money by tracking accurately, or whether the trial was unrewarded (Experiments 1 and 2, n = 11 each). Reward significantly improved eye-movement accuracy across different levels of task difficulty. Improvements were seen even in the earliest phase of the eye movement, within 70 ms of tracking onset, indicating that reward impacts visual-motor processing at an early level. We obtained similar findings when reward was not precued but explicitly associated with the pursuit target (Experiment 3, n = 16); critically, these results were not driven by stimulus prevalence or other factors such as preparation or motivation. Numerical cues (Experiment 4, n = 9) were not effective. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

  9. Detection of directional eye movements based on the electrooculogram signals through an artificial neural network

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Erkaymaz, Hande; Ozer, Mahmut; Orak, İlhami Muharrem

    2015-01-01

    The electrooculogram signals are very important at extracting information about detection of directional eye movements. Therefore, in this study, we propose a new intelligent detection model involving an artificial neural network for the eye movements based on the electrooculogram signals. In addition to conventional eye movements, our model also involves the detection of tic and blinking of an eye. We extract only two features from the electrooculogram signals, and use them as inputs for a feed-forwarded artificial neural network. We develop a new approach to compute these two features, which we call it as a movement range. The results suggest that the proposed model have a potential to become a new tool to determine the directional eye movements accurately

  10. Using E-Z Reader to Simulate Eye Movements in Nonreading Tasks: A Unified Framework for Understanding the Eye-Mind Link

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reichle, Erik D.; Pollatsek, Alexander; Rayner, Keith

    2012-01-01

    Nonreading tasks that share some (but not all) of the task demands of reading have often been used to make inferences about how cognition influences when the eyes move during reading. In this article, we use variants of the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control in reading to simulate eye-movement behavior in several of these tasks, including…

  11. Eye movements in ephedrone-induced parkinsonism.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cecilia Bonnet

    Full Text Available Patients with ephedrone parkinsonism (EP show a complex, rapidly progressive, irreversible, and levodopa non-responsive parkinsonian and dystonic syndrome due to manganese intoxication. Eye movements may help to differentiate parkinsonian syndromes providing insights into which brain networks are affected in the underlying disease, but they have never been systematically studied in EP. Horizontal and vertical eye movements were recorded in 28 EP and compared to 21 Parkinson's disease (PD patients, and 27 age- and gender-matched healthy subjects using standardized oculomotor tasks with infrared videooculography. EP patients showed slow and hypometric horizontal saccades, an increased occurrence of square wave jerks, long latencies of vertical antisaccades, a high error rate in the horizontal antisaccade task, and made more errors than controls when pro- and antisaccades were mixed. Based on oculomotor performance, a direct differentiation between EP and PD was possible only by the velocity of horizontal saccades. All remaining metrics were similar between both patient groups. EP patients present extensive oculomotor disturbances probably due to manganese-induced damage to the basal ganglia, reflecting their role in oculomotor system.

  12. Listening to music reduces eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schäfer, Thomas; Fachner, Jörg

    2015-02-01

    Listening to music can change the way that people visually experience the environment, probably as a result of an inwardly directed shift of attention. We investigated whether this attentional shift can be demonstrated by reduced eye movement activity, and if so, whether that reduction depends on absorption. Participants listened to their preferred music, to unknown neutral music, or to no music while viewing a visual stimulus (a picture or a film clip). Preference and absorption were significantly higher for the preferred music than for the unknown music. Participants exhibited longer fixations, fewer saccades, and more blinks when they listened to music than when they sat in silence. However, no differences emerged between the preferred music condition and the neutral music condition. Thus, music significantly reduces eye movement activity, but an attentional shift from the outer to the inner world (i.e., to the emotions and memories evoked by the music) emerged as only one potential explanation. Other explanations, such as a shift of attention from visual to auditory input, are discussed.

  13. Hidden Markov model analysis reveals the advantage of analytic eye movement patterns in face recognition across cultures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chuk, Tim; Crookes, Kate; Hayward, William G; Chan, Antoni B; Hsiao, Janet H

    2017-12-01

    It remains controversial whether culture modulates eye movement behavior in face recognition. Inconsistent results have been reported regarding whether cultural differences in eye movement patterns exist, whether these differences affect recognition performance, and whether participants use similar eye movement patterns when viewing faces from different ethnicities. These inconsistencies may be due to substantial individual differences in eye movement patterns within a cultural group. Here we addressed this issue by conducting individual-level eye movement data analysis using hidden Markov models (HMMs). Each individual's eye movements were modeled with an HMM. We clustered the individual HMMs according to their similarities and discovered three common patterns in both Asian and Caucasian participants: holistic (looking mostly at the face center), left-eye-biased analytic (looking mostly at the two individual eyes in addition to the face center with a slight bias to the left eye), and right-eye-based analytic (looking mostly at the right eye in addition to the face center). The frequency of participants adopting the three patterns did not differ significantly between Asians and Caucasians, suggesting little modulation from culture. Significantly more participants (75%) showed similar eye movement patterns when viewing own- and other-race faces than different patterns. Most importantly, participants with left-eye-biased analytic patterns performed significantly better than those using either holistic or right-eye-biased analytic patterns. These results suggest that active retrieval of facial feature information through an analytic eye movement pattern may be optimal for face recognition regardless of culture. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Optoelectronic stereoscopic device for diagnostics, treatment, and developing of binocular vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pautova, Larisa; Elkhov, Victor A.; Ovechkis, Yuri N.

    2003-08-01

    Operation of the device is based on alternative generation of pictures for left and right eyes on the monitor screen. Controller gives pulses on LCG so that shutter for left or right eye opens synchronously with pictures. The device provides frequency of switching more than 100 Hz, and that is why the flickering is absent. Thus, a separate demonstration of images to the left eye or to the right one in turn is obtained for patients being unaware and creates the conditions of binocular perception clsoe to natural ones without any additional separation of vision fields. LC-cell transfer characteristic coodination with time parameters of monitor screen has enabled to improve stereo image quality. Complicated problem of computer stereo images with LC-glasses is so called 'ghosts' - noise images that come to blocked eye. We reduced its influence by adapting stereo images to phosphor and LC-cells characteristics. The device is intended for diagnostics and treatment of stabismus, amblyopia and other binocular and stereoscopic vision impairments, for cultivating, training and developing of stereoscopic vision, for measurements of horizontal and vertical phoria, phusion reserves, the stereovision acuity and some else, for fixing central scotoma borders, as well as suppression scotoma in strabismus too.

  15. Coordination of eye and head components of movements evoked by stimulation of the paramedian pontine reticular formation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barton, Ellen J.; Sparks, David L.

    2013-01-01

    Constant frequency microstimulation of the paramedian pontine reticular formation (PPRF) in head-restrained monkeys evokes a constant velocity eye movement. Since the PPRF receives significant projections from structures that control coordinated eye-head movements, we asked whether stimulation of the pontine reticular formation in the head-unrestrained animal generates a combined eye-head movement or only an eye movement. Microstimulation of most sites yielded a constant-velocity gaze shift executed as a coordinated eye-head movement, although eye-only movements were evoked from some sites. The eye and head contributions to the stimulation-evoked movements varied across stimulation sites and were drastically different from the lawful relationship observed for visually-guided gaze shifts. These results indicate that the microstimulation activated elements that issued movement commands to the extraocular and, for most sites, neck motoneurons. In addition, the stimulation-evoked changes in gaze were similar in the head-restrained and head-unrestrained conditions despite the assortment of eye and head contributions, suggesting that the vestibuloocular reflex (VOR) gain must be near unity during the coordinated eye-head movements evoked by stimulation of the PPRF. These findings contrast the attenuation of VOR gain associated with visually-guided gaze shifts and suggest that the vestibulo-ocular pathway processes volitional and PPRF stimulation-evoked gaze shifts differently. PMID:18458891

  16. More to it than meets the eye: how eye movements can elucidate the development of episodic memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pathman, Thanujeni; Ghetti, Simona

    2016-07-01

    The ability to recognise past events along with the contexts in which they occurred is a hallmark of episodic memory, a critical capacity. Eye movements have been shown to track veridical memory for the associations between events and their contexts (relational binding). Such eye-movement effects emerge several seconds before, or in the absence of, explicit response, and are linked to the integrity and function of the hippocampus. Drawing from research from infancy through late childhood, and by comparing to investigations from typical adults, patient populations, and animal models, it seems increasingly clear that eye movements reflect item-item, item-temporal, and item-spatial associations in developmental populations. We analyse this line of work, identify missing pieces in the literature and outline future avenues of research, in order to help elucidate the development of episodic memory.

  17. What do your eyes say? Bridging eye movements to consumer behavior

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pedro Rosa

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Eye tracking (ET is a technique that has been progressively employed to study the influence of visual stimuli on attentional processes and consumer behavior. The goals of the present theoretical article are fourfold and are based on an extensive literature revision. First, a brief historical review of ET methodology is introduced, presenting the evolution of ET techniques from the ancient proto-eye trackers to the “fresh” state-of-theart eye ET devices. Second, the basics of ET are clarified through a simplified technical and mathematical explanation. Third, the triad eye movement-attention-consumer behavior is made clear, grounded on attention, interest, desire, and action (AIDA theoretical model. Fourth, the most used oculometrics in marketing studies are explained and distinguished The present article addresses a number of technical and methodological issues by discussing challenges involved in ET systems and giving some guidelines for those who intend to apply ET to infer cognitive and emotional processes.

  18. A novel apparatus for testing binocular function using the 'CyberDome' three-dimensional hemispherical visual display system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Handa, T; Ishikawa, H; Shimizu, K; Kawamura, R; Nakayama, H; Sawada, K

    2009-11-01

    Virtual reality has recently been highlighted as a promising medium for visual presentation and entertainment. A novel apparatus for testing binocular visual function using a hemispherical visual display system, 'CyberDome', has been developed and tested. Subjects comprised 40 volunteers (mean age, 21.63 years) with corrected visual acuity of -0.08 (LogMAR) or better, and stereoacuity better than 100 s of arc on the Titmus stereo test. Subjects were able to experience visual perception like being surrounded by visual images, a feature of the 'CyberDome' hemispherical visual display system. Visual images to the right and left eyes were projected and superimposed on the dome screen, allowing test images to be seen independently by each eye using polarizing glasses. The hemispherical visual display was 1.4 m in diameter. Three test parameters were evaluated: simultaneous perception (subjective angle of strabismus), motor fusion amplitude (convergence and divergence), and stereopsis (binocular disparity at 1260, 840, and 420 s of arc). Testing was performed in volunteer subjects with normal binocular vision, and results were compared with those using a major amblyoscope. Subjective angle of strabismus and motor fusion amplitude showed a significant correlation between our test and the major amblyoscope. All subjects could perceive the stereoscopic target with a binocular disparity of 480 s of arc. Our novel apparatus using the CyberDome, a hemispherical visual display system, was able to quantitatively evaluate binocular function. This apparatus offers clinical promise in the evaluation of binocular function.

  19. Degrading traumatic memories with eye movements : a pilot functional MRI study in PTSD

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Thomaes, Kathleen; Engelhard, Iris M; Sijbrandij, Marit; Cath, Danielle C; Van den Heuvel, Odile A

    2016-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is an effective treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). During EMDR, the patient recalls traumatic memories while making eye movements (EMs). Making EMs during recall is associated with decreased vividness and emotionality

  20. Roles of eyes, leg proprioceptors and statocysts in the compensatory eye movements of freely walking land crabs (Cardisoma guanhumi)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paul; Barnes; Varju

    1998-12-01

    The compound eyes, the canal organs of the statocysts and proprioceptors in the legs all generate compensatory eye movements in the horizontal plane in the land crab Cardisoma guanhumi. Frequency analyses of the compensatory eye reflexes elicited by each of these inputs show that visual (V) and proprioceptive (P) reflexes respond best below 0.1 Hz, while statocyst (S) reflexes only achieve a high gain above this frequency. They thus increase the range of frequencies over which compensation can occur. Eye and body movements were recorded in an arena under all possible combinations of crabs seeing or blind (V+ or V-), with or without statocysts (S+ or S-) and freely walking or passively transported on a trolley (P+ or P-). Intact crabs (V+S+P+) show good stabilisation of the eyes in space, the only movements with respect to external coordinates being saccadic resetting movements (fast phases of nystagmus). The eyes thus compensate well for body turns, but are unaffected by translatory movements of the body and turns that are not accompanied by a change in the orientation of the long axis of the body in space. In the absence of any one sense, compensation for rotation is significantly impaired, whether measured by the increase in the width of the histograms of changes in the angular positions of the eyes in space ( capdelta &phgr; E), by the mean angular velocity of the eyes (slope of regression line, mE) with respect to the angular velocity of the body (mB) or by response gain plotted against angular acceleration of body turn (a). The absence of two senses reduces the crab's ability to compensate still further, with the statocyst-only condition (V-S+P-) being little better than the condition when all three senses are absent (V-S-P-).Such multisensory control of eye compensation for body rotation is discussed both in terms of making use of every available cue for reducing retinal slip and in making available the information content of the optic flow field.

  1. Tracking the Eye Movement of Four Years Old Children Learning Chinese Words

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Dan; Chen, Guangyao; Liu, Yingyi; Liu, Jiaxin; Pan, Jue; Mo, Lei

    2018-01-01

    Storybook reading is the major source of literacy exposure for beginning readers. The present study tracked 4-year-old Chinese children's eye movements while they were reading simulated storybook pages. Their eye-movement patterns were examined in relation to their word learning gains. The same reading list, consisting of 20 two-character Chinese…

  2. Seeing via miniature eye movements: A dynamic hypothesis for vision

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ehud eAhissar

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available During natural viewing, the eyes are never still. Even during fixation, miniature movements of the eyes move the retinal image across tens of foveal photoreceptors. Most theories of vision implicitly assume that the visual system ignores these movements and somehow overcomes the resulting smearing. However, evidence has accumulated to indicate that fixational eye movements cannot be ignored by the visual system if fine spatial details are to be resolved. We argue that the only way the visual system can achieve its high resolution given its fixational movements is by seeing via these movements. Seeing via eye movements also eliminates the instability of the image, which would be induced by them otherwise. Here we present a hypothesis for vision, in which coarse details are spatially-encoded in gaze-related coordinates, and fine spatial details are temporally-encoded in relative retinal coordinates. The temporal encoding presented here achieves its highest resolution by encoding along the elongated axes of simple cell receptive fields and not across these axes as suggested by spatial models of vision. According to our hypothesis, fine details of shape are encoded by inter-receptor temporal phases, texture by instantaneous intra-burst rates of individual receptors, and motion by inter-burst temporal frequencies. We further describe the ability of the visual system to readout the encoded information and recode it internally. We show how reading out of retinal signals can be facilitated by neuronal phase-locked loops (NPLLs, which lock to the retinal jitter; this locking enables recoding of motion information and temporal framing of shape and texture processing. A possible implementation of this locking-and-recoding process by specific thalamocortical loops is suggested. Overall it is suggested that high-acuity vision is based primarily on temporal mechanisms of the sort presented here and low-acuity vision is based primarily on spatial mechanisms.

  3. A meta-analysis of the contribution of eye movements in processing emotional memories

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lee, C.W.; Cuijpers, P.

    2013-01-01

    Background and objectives: Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is now considered evidence based practice in the treatment of trauma symptoms. Yet in a previous meta-analysis, no significant effect was found for the eye movement component. However methodological issues with this

  4. Gender Classification Based on Eye Movements: A Processing Effect During Passive Face Viewing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sammaknejad, Negar; Pouretemad, Hamidreza; Eslahchi, Changiz; Salahirad, Alireza; Alinejad, Ashkan

    2017-01-01

    Studies have revealed superior face recognition skills in females, partially due to their different eye movement strategies when encoding faces. In the current study, we utilized these slight but important differences and proposed a model that estimates the gender of the viewers and classifies them into two subgroups, males and females. An eye tracker recorded participant's eye movements while they viewed images of faces. Regions of interest (ROIs) were defined for each face. Results showed that the gender dissimilarity in eye movements was not due to differences in frequency of fixations in the ROI s per se. Instead, it was caused by dissimilarity in saccade paths between the ROIs. The difference enhanced when saccades were towards the eyes. Females showed significant increase in transitions from other ROI s to the eyes. Consequently, the extraction of temporal transient information of saccade paths through a transition probability matrix, similar to a first order Markov chain model, significantly improved the accuracy of the gender classification results.

  5. Effect of a Binocular iPad Game vs Part-time Patching in Children Aged 5 to 12 Years With Amblyopia: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holmes, Jonathan M; Manh, Vivian M; Lazar, Elizabeth L; Beck, Roy W; Birch, Eileen E; Kraker, Raymond T; Crouch, Eric R; Erzurum, S Ayse; Khuddus, Nausheen; Summers, Allison I; Wallace, David K

    2016-12-01

    A binocular approach to treating anisometropic and strabismic amblyopia has recently been advocated. Initial studies have yielded promising results, suggesting that a larger randomized clinical trial is warranted. To compare visual acuity (VA) improvement in children with amblyopia treated with a binocular iPad game vs part-time patching. A multicenter, noninferiority randomized clinical trial was conducted in community and institutional practices from September 16, 2014, to August 28, 2015. Participants included 385 children aged 5 years to younger than 13 years with amblyopia (20/40 to 20/200, mean 20/63) resulting from strabismus, anisometropia, or both. Participants were randomly assigned to either 16 weeks of a binocular iPad game prescribed for 1 hour a day (190 participants; binocular group) or patching of the fellow eye prescribed for 2 hours a day (195 participants; patching group). Study follow-up visits were scheduled at 4, 8, 12, and 16 weeks. A modified intent-to-treat analysis was performed on participants who completed the 16-week trial. Binocular iPad game or patching of the fellow eye. Change in amblyopic-eye VA from baseline to 16 weeks. Of the 385 participants, 187 were female (48.6%); mean (SD) age was 8.5 (1.9) years. At 16 weeks, mean amblyopic-eye VA improved 1.05 lines (2-sided 95% CI, 0.85-1.24 lines) in the binocular group and 1.35 lines (2-sided 95% CI, 1.17-1.54 lines) in the patching group, with an adjusted treatment group difference of 0.31 lines favoring patching (upper limit of the 1-sided 95% CI, 0.53 lines). This upper limit exceeded the prespecified noninferiority limit of 0.5 lines. Only 39 of the 176 participants (22.2%) randomized to the binocular game and with log file data available performed more than 75% of the prescribed treatment (median, 46%; interquartile range, 20%-72%). In younger participants (aged 5 to effects (including diplopia) were uncommon and of similar frequency between groups. In children aged 5 to younger

  6. Motion perception in motion : how we perceive object motion during smooth pursuit eye movements

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Souman, J.L.

    2005-01-01

    Eye movements change the retinal image motion of objects in the visual field. When we make an eye movement, the image of a stationary object will move across the retinae, while the retinal image of an object that we follow with the eyes is approximately stationary. To enable us to perceive motion in

  7. Cross-Coupled Eye Movement Supports Neural Origin of Pattern Strabismus

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ghasia, Fatema F.; Shaikh, Aasef G.; Jacobs, Jonathan; Walker, Mark F.

    2015-01-01

    Purpose. Pattern strabismus describes vertically incomitant horizontal strabismus. Conventional theories emphasized the role of orbital etiologies, such as abnormal fundus torsion and misaligned orbital pulleys as a cause of the pattern strabismus. Experiments in animal models, however, suggested the role of abnormal cross-connections between the neural circuits. We quantitatively assessed eye movements in patients with pattern strabismus with a goal to delineate the role of neural circuits versus orbital etiologies. Methods. We measured saccadic eye movements with high-precision video-oculography in 14 subjects with pattern strabismus, 5 with comitant strabismus, and 15 healthy controls. We assessed change in eye position in the direction orthogonal to that of the desired eye movement (cross-coupled responses). We used fundus photography to quantify the fundus torsion. Results. We found cross-coupling of saccades in all patients with pattern strabismus. The cross-coupled responses were in the same direction in both eyes, but larger in the nonviewing eye. All patients had clinically apparent inferior oblique overaction with abnormal excylotorsion. There was no correlation between the amount of the fundus torsion or the grade of oblique overaction and the severity of cross-coupling. The disconjugacy in the saccade direction and amplitude in pattern strabismics did not have characteristics predicted by clinically apparent inferior oblique overaction. Conclusions. Our results validated primate models of pattern strabismus in human patients. We found no correlation between ocular torsion or oblique overaction and cross-coupling. Therefore, we could not ascribe cross-coupling exclusively to the orbital etiology. Patients with pattern strabismus could have abnormalities in the saccade generators. PMID:26024072

  8. Williams syndrome and its cognitive profile: the importance of eye movements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Van Herwegen J

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Jo Van Herwegen Department of Psychology, Kingston University London, Surrey, UK Abstract: People with Williams syndrome (WS, a rare neurodevelopmental disorder that is caused by a deletion on the long arm of chromosome 7, often show an uneven cognitive profile with participants performing better on language and face recognition tasks, in contrast to visuospatial and number tasks. Recent studies have shown that this specific cognitive profile in WS is a result of atypical developmental processes that interact with and affect brain development from infancy onward. Using examples from language, face processing, number, and visuospatial studies, this review evaluates current evidence from eye-tracking and developmental studies and argues that domain general processes, such as the ability to plan or execute saccades, influence the development of these domain-specific outcomes. Although more research on eye movements in WS is required, the importance of eye movements for cognitive development suggests a possible intervention pathway to improve cognitive abilities in this population. Keywords: Williams syndrome, eye movements, face processing, language, number, visuospatial abilities

  9. Magnifying visual target information and the role of eye movements in motor sequence learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Massing, Matthias; Blandin, Yannick; Panzer, Stefan

    2016-01-01

    An experiment investigated the influence of eye movements on learning a simple motor sequence task when the visual display was magnified. The task was to reproduce a 1300 ms spatial-temporal pattern of elbow flexions and extensions. The spatial-temporal pattern was displayed in front of the participants. Participants were randomly assigned to four groups differing on eye movements (free to use their eyes/instructed to fixate) and the visual display (small/magnified). All participants had to perform a pre-test, an acquisition phase, a delayed retention test, and a transfer test. The results indicated that participants in each practice condition increased their performance during acquisition. The participants who were permitted to use their eyes in the magnified visual display outperformed those who were instructed to fixate on the magnified visual display. When a small visual display was used, the instruction to fixate induced no performance decrements compared to participants who were permitted to use their eyes during acquisition. The findings demonstrated that a spatial-temporal pattern can be learned without eye movements, but being permitting to use eye movements facilitates the response production when the visual angle is increased. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  10. Dissociable Stages of Problem Solving (I): Temporal Characteristics Revealed by Eye-Movement Analyses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nitschke, Kai; Ruh, Nina; Kappler, Sonja; Stahl, Christoph; Kaller, Christoph P.

    2012-01-01

    Understanding the functional neuroanatomy of planning and problem solving may substantially benefit from better insight into the chronology of the cognitive processes involved. Based on the assumption that regularities in cognitive processing are reflected in overtly observable eye-movement patterns, here we recorded eye movements while…

  11. Eye Movements and Visual Search: A Bibliography,

    Science.gov (United States)

    1983-01-01

    duration and velocity. Neurology, 1975, 25, 1065-1070. EYM, SAC 40 Bard, C.; Fleury, M.; Carriere, L.; Halle, M. Analysis of Gymnastics Judges’ Visual...Nodine, C.F.; Carmody, D.P.; Herman, E. Eye Movements During Search for Artistically Embedded Targets. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 1979, 13

  12. P1-20: The Relation of Eye and Hand Movement during Multimodal Recall Memory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eun-Sol Kim

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Eye and hand movement tracking has been proven to be a successful tool and is widely used to figure out characteristics of human cognition in language or visual processing (Just & Carpenter, 1976 Cognitive Psychology 8441–480. Eye movement has proven to be a successful measure to figure out characteristics of human language and visual processing (Rayner, 1998 Psychological Bulletin 124(3 372–422. Recently, mouse tracking was used for social-cognition-like categorization of sex-atypical faces and studying spoken-language processes (Magnuson, 2005 PNAS 102(28 9995–9996; Spivey et al., 2005 PNAS 102 10393–10398. Here, we present a framework that uses both eye gaze and hand movement simultaneously for analyzing the relation of them during memory retrieval. We tracked eye and mouse movements when the subject was watching a drama and playing a multimodal memory game (MMG, a cognitive task designed to investigate the recall memory mechanisms in watching video dramas (Zhang, 2009 AAAI 2009 Spring Symposium: Agents that Learn from Human Teachers 144–149. Experimental results show that eye tracking and mouse tracking provide complementary information about underlying cognitive processes. Also, we found some interesting patterns in eye-hand movement during multimodal memory recall.

  13. Symptomatology associated with accommodative and binocular vision anomalies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    García-Muñoz, Ángel; Carbonell-Bonete, Stela; Cacho-Martínez, Pilar

    2014-01-01

    To determine the symptoms associated with accommodative and non-strabismic binocular dysfunctions and to assess the methods used to obtain the subjects' symptoms. We conducted a scoping review of articles published between 1988 and 2012 that analysed any aspect of the symptomatology associated with accommodative and non-strabismic binocular dysfunctions. The literature search was performed in Medline (PubMed), CINAHL, PsycINFO and FRANCIS. A total of 657 articles were identified, and 56 met the inclusion criteria. We found 267 different ways of naming the symptoms related to these anomalies, which we grouped into 34 symptom categories. Of the 56 studies, 35 employed questionnaires and 21 obtained the symptoms from clinical histories. We found 11 questionnaires, of which only 3 had been validated: the convergence insufficiency symptom survey (CISS V-15) and CIRS parent version, both specific for convergence insufficiency, and the Conlon survey, developed for visual anomalies in general. The most widely used questionnaire (21 studies) was the CISS V-15. Of the 34 categories of symptoms, the most frequently mentioned were: headache, blurred vision, diplopia, visual fatigue, and movement or flicker of words at near vision, which were fundamentally related to near vision and binocular anomalies. There is a wide disparity of symptoms related to accommodative and binocular dysfunctions in the scientific literature, most of which are associated with near vision and binocular dysfunctions. The only psychometrically validated questionnaires that we found (n=3) were related to convergence insufficiency and to visual dysfunctions in general and there no specific questionnaires for other anomalies. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Espana.

  14. Binocular depth processing in the ventral visual pathway

    OpenAIRE

    Verhoef, Bram-Ernst; Vogels, Rufin; Janssen, Peter

    2016-01-01

    One of the most powerful forms of depth perception capitalizes on the small relative displacements, or binocular disparities, in the images projected onto each eye. The brain employs these disparities to facilitate various computations, including sensori-motor transformations (reaching, grasping), scene segmentation and object recognition. In accordance with these different functions, disparity activates a large number of regions in the brain of both humans and monkeys. Here, we review how di...

  15. Template aging in eye movement-driven biometrics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Komogortsev, Oleg V.; Holland, Corey D.; Karpov, Alex

    2014-05-01

    This paper presents a template aging study of eye movement biometrics, considering three distinct biometric techniques on multiple stimuli and eye tracking systems. Short-to-midterm aging effects are examined over two-weeks, on a highresolution eye tracking system, and seven-months, on a low-resolution eye tracking system. We find that, in all cases, aging effects are evident as early as two weeks after initial template collection, with an average 28% (±19%) increase in equal error rates and 34% (±12%) reduction in rank-1 identification rates. At seven months, we observe an average 18% (±8%) increase in equal error rates and 44% (±20%) reduction in rank-1 identification rates. The comparative results at two-weeks and seven-months suggests that there is little difference in aging effects between the two intervals; however, whether the rate of decay increases more drastically in the long-term remains to be seen.

  16. Paying attention through eye movements: a computational investigation of the premotor theory of spatial attention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Casarotti, Marco; Lisi, Matteo; Umiltà, Carlo; Zorzi, Marco

    2012-07-01

    Growing evidence indicates that planning eye movements and orienting visuospatial attention share overlapping brain mechanisms. A tight link between endogenous attention and eye movements is maintained by the premotor theory, in contrast to other accounts that postulate the existence of specific attention mechanisms that modulate the activity of information processing systems. The strong assumption of equivalence between attention and eye movements, however, is challenged by demonstrations that human observers are able to keep attention on a specific location while moving the eyes elsewhere. Here we investigate whether a recurrent model of saccadic planning can account for attentional effects without requiring additional or specific mechanisms separate from the circuits that perform sensorimotor transformations for eye movements. The model builds on the basis function approach and includes a circuit that performs spatial remapping using an "internal forward model" of how visual inputs are modified as a result of saccadic movements. Simulations show that the latter circuit is crucial to account for dissociations between attention and eye movements that may be invoked to disprove the premotor theory. The model provides new insights into how spatial remapping may be implemented in parietal cortex and offers a computational framework for recent proposals that link visual stability with remapping of attention pointers.

  17. Geometry and Gesture-Based Features from Saccadic Eye-Movement as a Biometric in Radiology

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hammond, Tracy [Texas A& M University, College Station; Tourassi, Georgia [ORNL; Yoon, Hong-Jun [ORNL; Alamudun, Folami T. [ORNL

    2017-07-01

    In this study, we present a novel application of sketch gesture recognition on eye-movement for biometric identification and estimating task expertise. The study was performed for the task of mammographic screening with simultaneous viewing of four coordinated breast views as typically done in clinical practice. Eye-tracking data and diagnostic decisions collected for 100 mammographic cases (25 normal, 25 benign, 50 malignant) and 10 readers (three board certified radiologists and seven radiology residents), formed the corpus for this study. Sketch gesture recognition techniques were employed to extract geometric and gesture-based features from saccadic eye-movements. Our results show that saccadic eye-movement, characterized using sketch-based features, result in more accurate models for predicting individual identity and level of expertise than more traditional eye-tracking features.

  18. Automatic removal of eye-movement and blink artifacts from EEG signals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gao, Jun Feng; Yang, Yong; Lin, Pan; Wang, Pei; Zheng, Chong Xun

    2010-03-01

    Frequent occurrence of electrooculography (EOG) artifacts leads to serious problems in interpreting and analyzing the electroencephalogram (EEG). In this paper, a robust method is presented to automatically eliminate eye-movement and eye-blink artifacts from EEG signals. Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is used to decompose EEG signals into independent components. Moreover, the features of topographies and power spectral densities of those components are extracted to identify eye-movement artifact components, and a support vector machine (SVM) classifier is adopted because it has higher performance than several other classifiers. The classification results show that feature-extraction methods are unsuitable for identifying eye-blink artifact components, and then a novel peak detection algorithm of independent component (PDAIC) is proposed to identify eye-blink artifact components. Finally, the artifact removal method proposed here is evaluated by the comparisons of EEG data before and after artifact removal. The results indicate that the method proposed could remove EOG artifacts effectively from EEG signals with little distortion of the underlying brain signals.

  19. Learning to See: Guiding Students' Attention via a Model's Eye Movements Fosters Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jarodzka, Halszka; van Gog, Tamara; Dorr, Michael; Scheiter, Katharina; Gerjets, Peter

    2013-01-01

    This study investigated how to teach perceptual tasks, that is, classifying fish locomotion, through eye movement modeling examples (EMME). EMME consisted of a replay of eye movements of a didactically behaving domain expert (model), which had been recorded while he executed the task, superimposed onto the video stimulus. Seventy-five students…

  20. Caffeine increases the velocity of rapid eye movements in unfatigued humans.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Connell, Charlotte J W; Thompson, Benjamin; Turuwhenua, Jason; Hess, Robert F; Gant, Nicholas

    2017-08-01

    Caffeine is a widely used dietary stimulant that can reverse the effects of fatigue on cognitive, motor and oculomotor function. However, few studies have examined the effect of caffeine on the oculomotor system when homeostasis has not been disrupted by physical fatigue. This study examined the influence of a moderate dose of caffeine on oculomotor control and visual perception in participants who were not fatigued. Within a placebo-controlled crossover design, 13 healthy adults ingested caffeine (5 mg·kg -1 body mass) and were tested over 3 h. Eye movements, including saccades, smooth pursuit and optokinetic nystagmus, were measured using infrared oculography. Caffeine was associated with higher peak saccade velocities (472 ± 60° s -1 ) compared to placebo (455 ± 62° s -1 ). Quick phases of optokinetic nystagmus were also significantly faster with caffeine, whereas pursuit eye movements were unchanged. Non-oculomotor perceptual tasks (global motion and global orientation processing) were unaffected by caffeine. These results show that oculomotor control is modulated by a moderate dose of caffeine in unfatigued humans. These effects are detectable in the kinematics of rapid eye movements, whereas pursuit eye movements and visual perception are unaffected. Oculomotor functions may be sensitive to changes in central catecholamines mediated via caffeine's action as an adenosine antagonist, even when participants are not fatigued.

  1. Investigating the causes of wrap-up effects: evidence from eye movements and E-Z Reader.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Warren, Tessa; White, Sarah J; Reichle, Erik D

    2009-04-01

    Wrap-up effects in reading have traditionally been thought to reflect increased processing associated with intra- and inter-clause integration (Just, M. A. & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). A theory of reading: From eye fixations to comprehension. Psychological Review,87(4), 329-354; Rayner, K., Kambe, G., & Duffy, S. A. (2000). The effect of clause wrap-up on eye movements during reading. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,53A(4), 1061-1080; cf. Hirotani, M., Frazier, L., & Rayner, K. (2006). Punctuation and intonation effects on clause and sentence wrap-up: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Memory and Language,54, 425-443). We report an eye-tracking experiment with a strong manipulation of integrative complexity at a critical word that was either sentence-final, ended a comma-marked clause, or was not comma-marked. Although both complexity and punctuation had reliable effects, they did not interact in any eye-movement measure. These results as well as simulations using the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control (Reichle, E. D., Warren, T., & McConnell, K. (2009). Using E-Z Reader to model the effects of higher-level language processing on eye movements during reading. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,16(1), 1-20) suggest that traditional accounts of clause wrap-up are incomplete.

  2. Speed matters : relationship between speed of eye movements and modification of aversive autobiographical memories

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Veen, Suzanne; van Schie, Kevin; Wijngaards, Leoniek; Littel, Marianne; Engelhard, Iris; van den Hout, Marcel

    2015-01-01

    Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is an efficacious treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. In EMDR, patients recall a distressing memory and simultaneously make eye movements (EM). Both tasks are considered to require limited working memory (WM) resources. Because this

  3. The oculomotor system of decapod cephalopods: eye muscles, eye muscle nerves, and the oculomotor neurons in the central nervous system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Budelmann, B U; Young, J Z

    1993-04-29

    Fourteen extraocular eye muscles are described in the decapods Loligo and Sepioteuthis, and thirteen in Sepia; they are supplied by four eye muscle nerves. The main action of most of the muscles is a linear movement of the eyeball, only three muscles produce strong rotations. The arrangement, innervation and action of the decapod eye muscles are compared with those of the seven eye muscles and seven eye muscle nerves in Octopus. The extra muscles in decapods are attached to the anterior and superior faces of the eyes. At least, the anterior muscles, and presumably also the superior muscles, are concerned with convergent eye movements for binocular vision during fixation and capture of prey by the tentacles. The remaining muscles are rather similar in the two cephalopod groups. In decapods, the anterior muscles include conjunctive muscles; these cross the midline and each presumably moves both eyes at the same time during fixation. In the squids Loligo and Sepioteuthis there is an additional superior conjunctive muscle of perhaps similar function. Some of the anterior muscles are associated with a narrow moveable plate, the trochlear cartilage; it is attached to the eyeball by trochlear membranes. Centripetal cobalt fillings showed that all four eye muscle nerves have fibres that originate from somata in the ipsilateral anterior lateral pedal lobe, which is the oculomotor centre. The somata of the individual nerves show different but overlapping distributions. Bundles of small presumably afferent fibres were seen in two of the four nerves. They do not enter the anterior lateral pedal lobe but run to the ventral magnocellular lobe; some afferent fibres enter the brachio-palliovisceral connective and run perhaps as far as the palliovisceral lobe.

  4. Monitoring eye movement with a computer based Electro-oculogram (EOG).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dibble, Jamie M; Teters, Cherish K

    2004-01-01

    This project investigated ways to improve retinal laser surgery techniques. Currently, the surgery is manual and not very accurate because the eye has a tendency to move involuntarily and the laser can cause permanent damage to the patient if the eye moves out of range. Therefore, an Electro-oculogram (EOG) system was designed and tested capable of recording eye movement in both horizontal and vertical directions using the voltages produced by the eye for the purpose of feedback to the surgeon. The EOG system consisted of various filters and amplifiers to amplify the small signals created by the eye, which were obtained using surface electrodes placed around the eyes. An LED board was also designed for the subject to follow various LED lights with his/her eyes in all directions. A program was written with LabView software that was used to control the LED board as well as record and analyze the EOG signals. MatLab was used in correlation with LabView to perform additional filtering and to find the mean, root square mean, and standard deviation of the signal. This data was used to determine if a relationship exists between the direction of eye movement and the voltage produced by the eye. The EOG system and LED board operated as expected and the LabView program was capable of recording and analyzing the signals. The information gathered from this project could make retinal laser surgery more precise and safer by alleviating the potential for error and therefore unintentional damage to the patient.

  5. Quantitative measurement of binocular color fusion limit for non-spectral colors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jung, Yong Ju; Sohn, Hosik; Lee, Seong-il; Ro, Yong Man; Park, Hyun Wook

    2011-04-11

    Human perception becomes difficult in the event of binocular color fusion when the color difference presented for the left and right eyes exceeds a certain threshold value, known as the binocular color fusion limit. This paper discusses the binocular color fusion limit for non-spectral colors within the color gamut of a conventional LCD 3DTV. We performed experiments to measure the color fusion limit for eight chromaticity points sampled from the CIE 1976 chromaticity diagram. A total of 2480 trials were recorded for a single observer. By analyzing the results, the color fusion limit was quantified by ellipses in the chromaticity diagram. The semi-minor axis of the ellipses ranges from 0.0415 to 0.0923 in terms of the Euclidean distance in the u'v´ chromaticity diagram and the semi-major axis ranges from 0.0640 to 0.1560. These eight ellipses are drawn on the chromaticity diagram. © 2011 Optical Society of America

  6. Combining Motion-Induced Blindness with Binocular Rivalry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    K Jaworska

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available Motion-induced blindness (MIB and binocular rivalry (BR are examples of multistable phenomena in which our perception varies despite constant retinal input. It has been suggested that both phenomena are related and share a common underlying mechanism. We tried to determine whether experimental manipulations of the target dot and the mask systematically affect MIB and BR in an experimental paradigm that can elicit both phenomena. Eighteen observers fixated the center of a split-screen stereo display that consisted of a distracter mask and a superimposed target dot with different colour (isoluminant Red/Green in corresponding peripheral areas of the left and right eye. Observers reported perceived colour and disappearance of the target dot by pressing and releasing corresponding keys. In a within-subjects design the mask was presented in rivalry or not—with orthogonal drift in the left and right eye or with the same drift in both eyes. In control conditions the mask remained stationary. In addition, the size of the target dot was varied (small, medium, and large. Our results suggest that MIB measured by normalized frequency and duration of target disappearance and BR measured by normalized frequency and duration of colour reversals of the target were both affected by motion in the mask. Surprisingly, binocular rivalry in the mask had only a small effect on BR of the target and virtually no effect on MIB. The overall pattern of normalized MIB and BR measures, however, differed across experimental conditions. In conclusion, the results show some degree of dissociation between MIB and BR. Further analyses will inform whether or not the two phenomena occur independently of each other.

  7. Seamless interaction with scrolling contents on eyewear computers using optokinetic nystagmus eye movements

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jalaliniya, Shahram; Mardanbegi, Diako

    2016-01-01

    In this paper we investigate the utility of an eye-based interaction technique (EyeGrip) for seamless interaction with scrolling contents on eyewear computers. EyeGrip uses Optokinetic Nystagmus (OKN) eye movements to detect object of interest among a set of scrolling contents and automatically s...... a well-known input device. Moreover, the accuracy of the EyeGrip method for menu item selection was higher while in the Facebook study participants found keyboard more accurate.......In this paper we investigate the utility of an eye-based interaction technique (EyeGrip) for seamless interaction with scrolling contents on eyewear computers. EyeGrip uses Optokinetic Nystagmus (OKN) eye movements to detect object of interest among a set of scrolling contents and automatically...... stops scrolling for the user. We empirically evaluated the usability of EyeGrip in two different applications for eyewear computers: 1) a menu scroll viewer and 2) a Facebook newsfeed reader. The results of our study showed that the EyeGrip technique performs as good as keyboard which has long been...

  8. The Relation between Reading Skills and Eye Movement Patterns in Adolescent Readers: Evidence from a Regular Orthography.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Magdalena Krieber

    Full Text Available Over the past decades, the relation between reading skills and eye movement behavior has been well documented in English-speaking cohorts. As English and German differ substantially with regard to orthographic complexity (i.e. grapheme-phoneme correspondence, we aimed to delineate specific characteristics of how reading speed and reading comprehension interact with eye movements in typically developing German-speaking (Austrian adolescents. Eye movements of 22 participants (14 females; mean age = 13;6 years;months were tracked while they were performing three tasks, namely silently reading words, texts, and pseudowords. Their reading skills were determined by means of a standardized German reading speed and reading comprehension assessment (Lesegeschwindigkeits- und -verständnistest für Klassen 6-12. We found that (a reading skills were associated with various eye movement parameters in each of the three reading tasks; (b better reading skills were associated with an increased efficiency of eye movements, but were primarily linked to spatial reading parameters, such as the number of fixations per word, the total number of saccades and saccadic amplitudes; (c reading speed was a more reliable predictor for eye movement parameters than reading comprehension; (d eye movements were highly correlated across reading tasks, which indicates consistent reading performances. Contrary to findings in English-speaking cohorts, the reading skills neither consistently correlated with temporal eye movement parameters nor with the number or percentage of regressions made while performing any of the three reading tasks. These results indicate that, although reading skills are associated with eye movement patterns irrespective of language, the temporal and spatial characteristics of this association may vary with orthographic consistency.

  9. Eye movements in interception with delayed visual feedback.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cámara, Clara; de la Malla, Cristina; López-Moliner, Joan; Brenner, Eli

    2018-04-19

    The increased reliance on electronic devices such as smartphones in our everyday life exposes us to various delays between our actions and their consequences. Whereas it is known that people can adapt to such delays, the mechanisms underlying such adaptation remain unclear. To better understand these mechanisms, the current study explored the role of eye movements in interception with delayed visual feedback. In two experiments, eye movements were recorded as participants tried to intercept a moving target with their unseen finger while receiving delayed visual feedback about their own movement. In Experiment 1, the target randomly moved in one of two different directions at one of two different velocities. The delay between the participant's finger movement and movement of the cursor that provided feedback about the finger movements was gradually increased. Despite the delay, participants followed the target with their gaze. They were quite successful at hitting the target with the cursor. Thus, they moved their finger to a position that was ahead of where they were looking. Removing the feedback showed that participants had adapted to the delay. In Experiment 2, the target always moved in the same direction and at the same velocity, while the cursor's delay varied across trials. Participants still always directed their gaze at the target. They adjusted their movement to the delay on each trial, often succeeding to intercept the target with the cursor. Since their gaze was always directed at the target, and they could not know the delay until the cursor started moving, participants must have been using peripheral vision of the delayed cursor to guide it to the target. Thus, people deal with delays by directing their gaze at the target and using both experience from previous trials (Experiment 1) and peripheral visual information (Experiment 2) to guide their finger in a way that will make the cursor hit the target.

  10. Grammatical number processing and anticipatory eye movements are not tightly coordinated in English spoken language comprehension

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Brian eRiordan

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Recent studies of eye movements in world-situated language comprehension have demonstrated that rapid processing of morphosyntactic information – e.g., grammatical gender and number marking – can produce anticipatory eye movements to referents in the visual scene. We investigated how type of morphosyntactic information and the goals of language users in comprehension affected eye movements, focusing on the processing of grammatical number morphology in English-speaking adults. Participants’ eye movements were recorded as they listened to simple English declarative (There are the lions. and interrogative (Where are the lions? sentences. In Experiment 1, no differences were observed in speed to fixate target referents when grammatical number information was informative relative to when it was not. The same result was obtained in a speeded task (Experiment 2 and in a task using mixed sentence types (Experiment 3. We conclude that grammatical number processing in English and eye movements to potential referents are not tightly coordinated. These results suggest limits on the role of predictive eye movements in concurrent linguistic and scene processing. We discuss how these results can inform and constrain predictive approaches to language processing.

  11. Infant eye and head movements toward the side opposite the cue in the anti-saccade paradigm

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sukigara Masune

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The anti-saccade task, when people must respond in the direction opposite to a visual stimulus, has been used as a marker of operation of the frontal cortical oculomotor area. However, early development of oculomotor control has been little studied with the infant anti-saccade paradigm, and a few studies did not recognize anti-saccades in infants in light of the results of adult anti-saccade. Since the characteristics of infant eye movements are little known, applying the criteria used in adult study is by no means the best way to study infant anti-saccade. As it is indicated that coordinated eye and head movements often enable infants to control the direction of their gaze, head movements should be examined as an infant orienting response. The aim of this study was to address how infants used eye and head movements during the anti-saccade paradigm. To distinguish infants' responses, we also investigated eye and head movements during a task for an inhibition of return. Inhibition of return, in which delayed responses occur in the direction to which attention had previously been oriented, has been thought to mark activity of the superior colliculus. Since the superior colliculus is thought to develop much earlier in life than the frontal lobes, we thought it useful to compare these task performances during infancy. Methods Infants were divided into three groups according to age. Anti-saccade and inhibition-of-return tasks were given. Their eye and head movements during tasks were independently recorded by the corneal reflection method in the head-free condition. Results Younger infants tended to initiate eye movement less than older ones in both tasks. In the anti-saccade task, responses opposite to the cue tended to show longer latency than responses to the cue. Infants made faster responses toward the side opposite the cue when it was to the right than when it was left of fixation. Regarding the comparison of responses

  12. Monocular tool control, eye dominance, and laterality in New Caledonian crows.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martinho, Antone; Burns, Zackory T; von Bayern, Auguste M P; Kacelnik, Alex

    2014-12-15

    Tool use, though rare, is taxonomically widespread, but morphological adaptations for tool use are virtually unknown. We focus on the New Caledonian crow (NCC, Corvus moneduloides), which displays some of the most innovative tool-related behavior among nonhumans. One of their major food sources is larvae extracted from burrows with sticks held diagonally in the bill, oriented with individual, but not species-wide, laterality. Among possible behavioral and anatomical adaptations for tool use, NCCs possess unusually wide binocular visual fields (up to 60°), suggesting that extreme binocular vision may facilitate tool use. Here, we establish that during natural extractions, tool tips can only be viewed by the contralateral eye. Thus, maintaining binocular view of tool tips is unlikely to have selected for wide binocular fields; the selective factor is more likely to have been to allow each eye to see far enough across the midsagittal line to view the tool's tip monocularly. Consequently, we tested the hypothesis that tool side preference follows eye preference and found that eye dominance does predict tool laterality across individuals. This contrasts with humans' species-wide motor laterality and uncorrelated motor-visual laterality, possibly because bill-held tools are viewed monocularly and move in concert with eyes, whereas hand-held tools are visible to both eyes and allow independent combinations of eye preference and handedness. This difference may affect other models of coordination between vision and mechanical control, not necessarily involving tools. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. Computational Model-Based Prediction of Human Episodic Memory Performance Based on Eye Movements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sato, Naoyuki; Yamaguchi, Yoko

    Subjects' episodic memory performance is not simply reflected by eye movements. We use a ‘theta phase coding’ model of the hippocampus to predict subjects' memory performance from their eye movements. Results demonstrate the ability of the model to predict subjects' memory performance. These studies provide a novel approach to computational modeling in the human-machine interface.

  14. A common control signal and a ballistic stage can explain the control of coordinated eye-hand movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gopal, Atul; Murthy, Aditya

    2016-06-01

    Voluntary control has been extensively studied in the context of eye and hand movements made in isolation, yet little is known about the nature of control during eye-hand coordination. We probed this with a redirect task. Here subjects had to make reaching/pointing movements accompanied by coordinated eye movements but had to change their plans when the target occasionally changed its position during some trials. Using a race model framework, we found that separate effector-specific mechanisms may be recruited to control eye and hand movements when executed in isolation but when the same effectors are coordinated a unitary mechanism to control coordinated eye-hand movements is employed. Specifically, we found that performance curves were distinct for the eye and hand when these movements were executed in isolation but were comparable when they were executed together. Second, the time to switch motor plans, called the target step reaction time, was different in the eye-alone and hand-alone conditions but was similar in the coordinated condition under assumption of a ballistic stage of ∼40 ms, on average. Interestingly, the existence of this ballistic stage could predict the extent of eye-hand dissociations seen in individual subjects. Finally, when subjects were explicitly instructed to control specifically a single effector (eye or hand), redirecting one effector had a strong effect on the performance of the other effector. Taken together, these results suggest that a common control signal and a ballistic stage are recruited when coordinated eye-hand movement plans require alteration. Copyright © 2016 the American Physiological Society.

  15. Neurophysiological aspects of eye and eyelid movements during blinking in humans

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bour, L. J.; Aramideh, M.; de Visser, B. W.

    2000-01-01

    The neural relationships between eyelid movements and eye movements during spontaneous, voluntary, and reflex blinking in a group of healthy subjects were examined. Electromyographic (EMG) recording of the orbicularis oculi (OO) muscles was performed using surface electrodes. Concurrently,

  16. Application of eye movement measuring system OBER 2 to medicine and technology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ober, Jozef; Hajda, Janusz; Loska, Jacek; Jamicki, Michal

    1997-08-01

    The OBER 2 is an infrared light eye movement measuring system and it works with IBM PC compatible computers. As one of the safest systems for measuring of eye movement it uses a very short period of infrared light flashing time (80 microsecond for each measure point). System has an advanced analog-digital controller, which includes background suppression and prediction mechanisms guaranteeing elimination of slow changes and fluctuations of external illumination frequency up to 100 Hz, with effectiveness better than 40 dB. Setting from PC the active measure axis, sampling rate (25 - 4000 Hz) and making start and stop the measure, make it possible to control the outside environment in real-time. By proper controlling of gain it is possible to get high time and position resolution of 0.5 minute of arc even for big amplitude of eye movement (plus or minus 20 degree of visual angle). The whole communication system can also be driven directly by eye movement in real time. The possibility of automatic selection of the most essential elements of eye movement, individual for each person and those that take place for each person in determined situations of life independently from personal features, is a key to practical application. Hence one of conducted research topic is a personal identification based on personal features. Another task is a research project of falling asleep detection, which can be applied to warn the drivers before falling asleep while driving. This measuring system with a proper expert system can also be used to detect a dyslexia and other disabilities of the optic system.

  17. A role of the human thalamus in predicting the perceptual consequences of eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ostendorf, Florian; Liebermann, Daniela; Ploner, Christoph J

    2013-01-01

    Internal monitoring of oculomotor commands may help to anticipate and keep track of changes in perceptual input imposed by our eye movements. Neurophysiological studies in non-human primates identified corollary discharge (CD) signals of oculomotor commands that are conveyed via thalamus to frontal cortices. We tested whether disruption of these monitoring pathways on the thalamic level impairs the perceptual matching of visual input before and after an eye movement in human subjects. Fourteen patients with focal thalamic stroke and 20 healthy control subjects performed a task requiring a perceptual judgment across eye movements. Subjects reported the apparent displacement of a target cue that jumped unpredictably in sync with a saccadic eye movement. In a critical condition of this task, six patients exhibited clearly asymmetric perceptual performance for rightward vs. leftward saccade direction. Furthermore, perceptual judgments in seven patients systematically depended on oculomotor targeting errors, with self-generated targeting errors erroneously attributed to external stimulus jumps. Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping identified an area in right central thalamus as critical for the perceptual matching of visual space across eye movements. Our findings suggest that trans-thalamic CD transmission decisively contributes to a correct prediction of the perceptual consequences of oculomotor actions.

  18. A role of the human thalamus in predicting the perceptual consequences of eye movements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Florian eOstendorf

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available Internal monitoring of oculomotor commands may help to anticipate and keep track of changes in perceptual input imposed by our eye movements. Neurophysiological studies in non-human primates identified corollary discharge signals of oculomotor commands that are conveyed via thalamus to frontal cortices. We tested whether disruption of these monitoring pathways on the thalamic level impairs the perceptual matching of visual input before and after an eye movement in human subjects. Fourteen patients with focal thalamic stroke and twenty healthy control subjects performed a task requiring a perceptual judgment across eye movements. Subjects reported the apparent displacement of a target cue that jumped unpredictably in sync with a saccadic eye movement. In a critical condition of this task, six patients exhibited clearly asymmetric perceptual performance for rightward versus leftward saccade direction. Furthermore, perceptual judgments in seven patients systematically depended on oculomotor targeting errors, with self-generated targeting errors erroneously attributed to external stimulus jumps. Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping identified an area in right central thalamus as critical for the perceptual matching of visual space across eye movements. Our findings suggest that trans-thalamic corollary discharge transmission decisively contributes to a correct prediction of the perceptual consequences of oculomotor actions.

  19. Eye Carduino: A Car Control System using Eye Movements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumar, Arjun; Nagaraj, Disha; Louzardo, Joel; Hegde, Rajeshwari

    2011-12-01

    Modern automotive systems are rapidly becoming highly of transportation, but can be a web integrated media centre. This paper explains the implementation of a vehicle control defined and characterized by embedded electronics and software. With new technologies, the vehicle industry is facing new opportunities and also new challenges. Electronics have improved the performance of vehicles and at the same time, new more complex applications are introduced. Examples of high level applications include adaptive cruise control and electronic stability programs (ESP). Further, a modern vehicle does not have to be merely a means using only eye movements. The EyeWriter's native hardware and software work to return the co-ordinates of where the user is looking. These co-ordinates are then used to control the car. A centre-point is defined on the screen. The higher on the screen the user's gaze is, the faster the car will accelerate. Braking is done by looking below centre. Steering is done by looking left and right on the screen.

  20. Saccadic Eye Movement Improves Plantar Sensation and Postural Balance in Elderly Women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bae, Youngsook

    2016-06-01

    Vision, proprioception and plantar sensation contribute to the control of postural balance (PB). Reduced plantar sensation alters postural response and is at an increased risk of fall, and eye movements reduce the postural sway. Therefore, the aim of this study was to study the improvement of plantar sensation and PB after saccadic eye movement (SEM) and pursuit eye movement (PEM) in community-dwelling elderly women. Participants (104 females; 75.11 ± 6.25 years) were randomly allocated into the SEM group (n = 52) and PEM groups (n = 52). The SEM group performed eye fixation and SEM for 5 minutes, and the PEM group performed eye fixation and PEM for 5 minutes. The plantar sensation was measured according to the plantar surface area of the feet in contact with the floor surface before and after the intervention. Before and after SEM and PEM with the eyes open and closed, PB was measured as the area (mm(2)), length (cm), and velocity (cm/s) of the fluctuation of the center of pressure (COP). The plantar sensation of both feet improved in both groups (p eye open and close in both groups (p < 0.01). The length and velocity of the COP significantly decreased in the SEM group compared to the PEM group (p < 0.05). In conclusion, SEM and PEM are effective interventions for improving plantar sensation and PB in elderly women, with greater PB improvement after SEM.

  1. Eye movement analysis of reading from computer displays, eReaders and printed books.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zambarbieri, Daniela; Carniglia, Elena

    2012-09-01

    To compare eye movements during silent reading of three eBooks and a printed book. The three different eReading tools were a desktop PC, iPad tablet and Kindle eReader. Video-oculographic technology was used for recording eye movements. In the case of reading from the computer display the recordings were made by a video camera placed below the computer screen, whereas for reading from the iPad tablet, eReader and printed book the recording system was worn by the subject and had two cameras: one for recording the movement of the eyes and the other for recording the scene in front of the subject. Data analysis provided quantitative information in terms of number of fixations, their duration, and the direction of the movement, the latter to distinguish between fixations and regressions. Mean fixation duration was different only in reading from the computer display, and was similar for the Tablet, eReader and printed book. The percentage of regressions with respect to the total amount of fixations was comparable for eReading tools and the printed book. The analysis of eye movements during reading an eBook from different eReading tools suggests that subjects' reading behaviour is similar to reading from a printed book. © 2012 The College of Optometrists.

  2. Blurring emotional memories using eye movements: individual differences and speed of eye movements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kevin van Schie

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Background: In eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR, patients make eye movements (EM while recalling traumatic memories. Making EM taxes working memory (WM, which leaves less resources available for imagery of the memory. This reduces memory vividness and emotionality during future recalls. WM theory predicts that individuals with small working memory capacities (WMCs benefit more from low levels of taxing (i.e., slow EM whereas individuals with large WMC benefit more from high levels of taxing (i.e., fast EM. Objective: We experimentally examined and tested four prespecified hypotheses regarding the role of WMC and EM speed in reducing emotionality and vividness ratings: 1 EM—regardless of WMC and EM speed—are more effective compared to no dual task, 2 increasing EM speed only affects the decrease in memory ratings irrespective of WMC, 3 low-WMC individuals—compared to high-WMC individuals—benefit more from making either type of EM, 4 the EM intervention is most effective when—as predicted by WM theory—EM are adjusted to WMC. Method: Undergraduates with low (n=31 or high (n=35 WMC recalled three emotional memories and rated vividness and emotionality before and after each condition (recall only, recall + slow EM, and recall + fast EM. Results: Contrary to the theory, the data do not support the hypothesis that EM speed should be adjusted to WMC (hypothesis 4. However, the data show that a dual task in general is more effective in reducing memory ratings than no dual task (hypothesis 1, and that a more cognitively demanding dual task increases the intervention's effectiveness (hypothesis 2. Conclusions: Although adjusting EM speed to an individual's WMC seems a straightforward clinical implication, the data do not show any indication that such a titration is helpful.

  3. Blurring emotional memories using eye movements: individual differences and speed of eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Schie, Kevin; van Veen, Suzanne C; Engelhard, Iris M; Klugkist, Irene; van den Hout, Marcel A

    2016-01-01

    In eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), patients make eye movements (EM) while recalling traumatic memories. Making EM taxes working memory (WM), which leaves less resources available for imagery of the memory. This reduces memory vividness and emotionality during future recalls. WM theory predicts that individuals with small working memory capacities (WMCs) benefit more from low levels of taxing (i.e., slow EM) whereas individuals with large WMC benefit more from high levels of taxing (i.e., fast EM). We experimentally examined and tested four prespecified hypotheses regarding the role of WMC and EM speed in reducing emotionality and vividness ratings: 1) EM-regardless of WMC and EM speed-are more effective compared to no dual task, 2) increasing EM speed only affects the decrease in memory ratings irrespective of WMC, 3) low-WMC individuals-compared to high-WMC individuals-benefit more from making either type of EM, 4) the EM intervention is most effective when-as predicted by WM theory-EM are adjusted to WMC. Undergraduates with low (n=31) or high (n=35) WMC recalled three emotional memories and rated vividness and emotionality before and after each condition (recall only, recall + slow EM, and recall + fast EM). Contrary to the theory, the data do not support the hypothesis that EM speed should be adjusted to WMC (hypothesis 4). However, the data show that a dual task in general is more effective in reducing memory ratings than no dual task (hypothesis 1), and that a more cognitively demanding dual task increases the intervention's effectiveness (hypothesis 2). Although adjusting EM speed to an individual's WMC seems a straightforward clinical implication, the data do not show any indication that such a titration is helpful.

  4. Interactions between working memory, attention and eye movements

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Theeuwes, J.; Belopolsky, A.V.; Olivers, C.N.L.

    2009-01-01

    This paper reviews the recent findings on working memory, attention and eye movements. We discuss the research that shows that many phenomena related to visual attention taking place when selecting relevant information from the environment are similar to processes needed to keep information active

  5. A quantitative measurement of binocular color fusion limit for different disparities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Zaiqing; Shi, Junsheng; Tai, Yonghan; Huang, Xiaoqiao; Yun, Lijun; Zhang, Chao

    2018-01-01

    Color asymmetry is a common phenomenon in stereoscopic display system, which can cause visual fatigue or visual discomfort. When the color difference between the left and right eyes exceeds a threshold value, named binocular color fusion limit, color rivalry is said to occur. The most important information brought by stereoscopic displays is the depth perception produced by the disparity. As the stereo pair stimuli are presented separately to both eyes with disparities and those two monocular stimuli differ in color but share an iso-luminance polarity, it is possible for stereopsis and color rivalry to coexist. In this paper, we conducted an experiment to measure the color fusion limit for different disparity levels. In particular, it examines how the magnitude and sign of disparity affect the binocular color fusion limit that yields a fused, stable stereoscopic percept. The binocular color fusion limit was measured at five levels of disparities: 0, +/-60, +/-120 arc minutes for a sample color point which was selected from the 1976 CIE u'v' chromaticity diagram. The experimental results showed that fusion limit for the sample point varied with the level and sign of disparity. It was an interesting result that the fusion limit increased as the disparity decreases at crossed disparity direction (sign -), but there is almost no big change at uncrossed disparity direction (sign +). We found that color fusion was more difficult to achieve at the crossed disparity direction than at the uncrossed disparity direction.

  6. A special role for binocular visual input during development and as a component of occlusion therapy for treatment of amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mitchell, Donald E

    2008-01-01

    To review work on animal models of deprivation amblyopia that points to a special role for binocular visual input in the development of spatial vision and as a component of occlusion (patching) therapy for amblyopia. The studies reviewed employ behavioural methods to measure the effects of various early experiential manipulations on the development of the visual acuity of the two eyes. Short periods of concordant binocular input, if continuous, can offset much longer daily periods of monocular deprivation to allow the development of normal visual acuity in both eyes. It appears that the visual system does not weigh all visual input equally in terms of its ability to impact on the development of vision but instead places greater weight on concordant binocular exposure. Experimental models of patching therapy for amblyopia imposed on animals in which amblyopia had been induced by a prior period of early monocular deprivation, indicate that the benefits of patching therapy may be only temporary and decline rapidly after patching is discontinued. However, when combined with critical amounts of binocular visual input each day, the benefits of patching can be both heightened and made permanent. Taken together with demonstrations of retained binocular connections in the visual cortex of monocularly deprived animals, a strong argument is made for inclusion of specific training of stereoscopic vision for part of the daily periods of binocular exposure that should be incorporated as part of any patching protocol for amblyopia.

  7. Eye-Movement Analysis Demonstrates Strategic Influences on Intelligence

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vigneau, Francois; Caissie, Andre F.; Bors, Douglas A.

    2006-01-01

    Taking into account various models and findings pertaining to the nature of analogical reasoning, this study explored quantitative and qualitative individual differences in intelligence using latency and eye-movement data. Fifty-five university students were administered 14 selected items of the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices test. Results…

  8. Silent reading of music and texts; eye movements and integrative reading mechanisms

    OpenAIRE

    Cara, Michel André; Gómez, Gabriela

    2016-01-01

    This study investigates to what extent structural units defined by physical and structural markers elicit different eye movement patterns when reading contrasting stimuli of music and verbal texts. Eye movements were tracked and compared in ten musicians undergoing Bachelor’s degrees as they silently read six texts and six pieces of music for piano: the music was contemporary, in modal style, and the style of the texts was informative and literary. Participants were music students at Universi...

  9. Dynamic scanpaths: eye movement analysis methods

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blackmon, Theodore T.; Ho, Yeuk F.; Chernyak, Dimitri A.; Azzariti, Michela; Stark, Lawrence W.

    1999-05-01

    An eye movements sequence, or scanpath, during viewing of a stationary stimulus has been described as a set of fixations onto regions-of-interest, ROIs, and the saccades or transitions between them. Such scanpaths have high similarity for the same subject and stimulus both in the spatial loci of the ROIs and their sequence; scanpaths also take place during recollection of a previously viewed stimulus, suggesting that they play a similar role in visual memory and recall.

  10. Children's Eye Movements, Miscue Analysis Patterns, and Retellings When Reading a Counterpoint Picture Book

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liwanag, Maria Perpetua Socorro U.; Pelatti, Christina Yeager; Martens, Ray; Martens, Prisca

    2016-01-01

    This study incorporated eye movement miscue analysis to investigate two second-graders' oral reading and comprehension of a counterpoint picture book. Findings suggest the second-graders' strategies when reading the written and pictorial text affected their comprehension as opposed to the number and location of their eye movements. Specifically,…

  11. Using Eye Movements to Model the Sequence of Text-Picture Processing for Multimedia Comprehension

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mason, L.; Scheiter, K.; Tornatora, M. C.

    2017-01-01

    This study used eye movement modeling examples (EMME) to support students' integrative processing of verbal and graphical information during the reading of an illustrated text. EMME consists of a replay of eye movements of a model superimposed onto the materials that are processed for accomplishing the task. Specifically, the study investigated…

  12. Eye Movement Patterns during Locomotion in Real-World and Simulated Environments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ming Zhao

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Eye movements in a search-and-count walking task were compared between a simulated (SE and real-world environment (RE. Eye movements were recorded using the mobile WearCam in either RE or the StroMoHab locomotion simulator, a treadmill-based system for gait mobility rehabilitation. For Experiment 1, a RE was prepared with objects (coloured balls and occluding barriers placed along a 38 m long corridor. A video was captured from a walker's viewpoint at 1.3 km/hr. Fifteen subjects per environment reported the total object count after completing a walk while viewing the video in the SE (at 0, 1.3, or 2.5 km/h and RE (at 1.3 km/h. Examining the number of eye transitions (TotET between objects in relation to walking speed in SE, revealed significant increases between 0 and 2.5 km/h (F3, 56 =20.62, p = .02 and 1.3 and 2.5 km/h (F3, 56 =20.62, p = .039, despite no change in video speed; no significant difference was found between 0 and 1.3 km/h. In Experiment 2, 15 subjects viewed a static checkered screen and were instructed to ‘view the screen’ while walking. TotET decreased significantly, between 1.3 km/h and 5.2 km/h (F2, 27 =3.437, p = .014; no significant differences were observed between 2.6 km/h and either 1.3 km/h or 5.2 km/h. In real-world conditions, walking faster increases the difficulty of search tasks, with a likely correlated increase in eye movements. Apparently, the expectation of increased difficulty carries over to SE, even if the visual task is not more difficult. The findings point to physiological and perceptual correlations between locomotion and eye movements.

  13. Vergence-mediated changes in the axis of eye rotation during the human vestibulo-ocular reflex can occur independent of eye position.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Migliaccio, Americo A; Cremer, Phillip D; Aw, Swee T; Halmagyi, G Michael; Curthoys, Ian S; Minor, Lloyd B; Todd, Michael J

    2003-07-01

    The aim of this study was to determine whether vergence-mediated changes in the axis of eye rotation in the human vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) would obey Listing's Law (normally associated with saccadic eye movements) independent of the initial eye position. We devised a paradigm for disassociating the saccadic velocity axis from eye position by presenting near and far targets that were centered with respect to one eye. We measured binocular 3-dimensional eye movements using search coils in ten normal subjects and 3-dimensional linear head acceleration using Optotrak in seven normal subjects. The stimuli consisted of passive, unpredictable, pitch head rotations with peak acceleration of approximately 2000 degrees /s(2 )and amplitude of approximately 20 degrees. During the pitch head rotation, each subject fixated straight ahead with one eye, whereas the other eye was adducted 4 degrees during far viewing (94 cm) and 25 degrees during near viewing (15 cm). Our data showed expected compensatory pitch rotations in both eyes, and a vergence-mediated horizontal rotation only in the adducting eye. In addition, during near viewing we observed torsional eye rotations not only in the adducting eye but also in the eye looking straight ahead. In the straight-ahead eye, the change in torsional eye velocity between near and far viewing, which began approximately 40 ms after the start of head rotation, was 10+/-6 degrees /s (mean +/- SD). This change in torsional eye velocity resulted in a 2.4+/-1.5 degrees axis tilt toward Listing's plane in that eye. In the adducting eye, the change in torsional eye velocity between near and far viewing was 16+/-6 degrees /s (mean +/- SD) and resulted in a 4.1+/-1.4 degrees axis tilt. The torsional eye velocities were conjugate and both eyes partially obeyed Listing's Law. The axis of eye rotation tilted in the direction of the line of sight by approximately one-third of the angle between the line of sight and a line orthogonal to Listing

  14. Exploring Cultural Variation in Eye Movements on a Web Page between Americans and Koreans

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Changwoo

    2009-01-01

    This study explored differences in eye movement on a Web page between members of two different cultures to provide insight and guidelines for implementation of global Web site development. More specifically, the research examines whether differences of eye movement exist between the two cultures (American vs. Korean) when viewing a Web page, and…

  15. Both lexical and non-lexical characters are processed during saccadic eye movements.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hao Zhang

    Full Text Available On average our eyes make 3-5 saccadic movements per second when we read, although their neural mechanism is still unclear. It is generally thought that saccades help redirect the retinal fovea to specific characters and words but that actual discrimination of information only occurs during periods of fixation. Indeed, it has been proposed that there is active and selective suppression of information processing during saccades to avoid experience of blurring due to the high-speed movement. Here, using a paradigm where a string of either lexical (Chinese or non-lexical (alphabetic characters are triggered by saccadic eye movements, we show that subjects can discriminate both while making saccadic eye movement. Moreover, discrimination accuracy is significantly better for characters scanned during the saccadic movement to a fixation point than those not scanned beyond it. Our results showed that character information can be processed during the saccade, therefore saccades during reading not only function to redirect the fovea to fixate the next character or word but allow pre-processing of information from the ones adjacent to the fixation locations to help target the next most salient one. In this way saccades can not only promote continuity in reading words but also actively facilitate reading comprehension.

  16. Vibrating makes for better seeing: from the fly's micro eye movements to hyperacute visual sensors

    OpenAIRE

    Stéphane eViollet

    2014-01-01

    Active vision means that visual perception not only depends closely on the subject's own movements, but that these movements actually contribute to the visual perceptual processes. Vertebrates' and invertebrates' eye movements are probably part of an active visual process, but their exact role still remains to be determined. In this paper, studies on the retinal micro-movements occurring in the compound eye of the fly are reviewed. Several authors have located and identified the muscles invo...

  17. Rapid eye movements during sleep in mice: High trait-like stability qualifies rapid eye movement density for characterization of phenotypic variation in sleep patterns of rodents

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fulda Stephany

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background In humans, rapid eye movements (REM density during REM sleep plays a prominent role in psychiatric diseases. Especially in depression, an increased REM density is a vulnerability marker for depression. In clinical practice and research measurement of REM density is highly standardized. In basic animal research, almost no tools are available to obtain and systematically evaluate eye movement data, although, this would create increased comparability between human and animal sleep studies. Methods We obtained standardized electroencephalographic (EEG, electromyographic (EMG and electrooculographic (EOG signals from freely behaving mice. EOG electrodes were bilaterally and chronically implanted with placement of the electrodes directly between the musculus rectus superior and musculus rectus lateralis. After recovery, EEG, EMG and EOG signals were obtained for four days. Subsequent to the implantation process, we developed and validated an Eye Movement scoring in Mice Algorithm (EMMA to detect REM as singularities of the EOG signal, based on wavelet methodology. Results The distribution of wakefulness, non-REM (NREM sleep and rapid eye movement (REM sleep was typical of nocturnal rodents with small amounts of wakefulness and large amounts of NREM sleep during the light period and reversed proportions during the dark period. REM sleep was distributed correspondingly. REM density was significantly higher during REM sleep than NREM sleep. REM bursts were detected more often at the end of the dark period than the beginning of the light period. During REM sleep REM density showed an ultradian course, and during NREM sleep REM density peaked at the beginning of the dark period. Concerning individual eye movements, REM duration was longer and amplitude was lower during REM sleep than NREM sleep. The majority of single REM and REM bursts were associated with micro-arousals during NREM sleep, but not during REM sleep. Conclusions Sleep

  18. Anticipatory eye movements and long-term memory in early infancy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wong-Kee-You, Audrey M B; Adler, Scott A

    2016-11-01

    Advances in our understanding of long-term memory in early infancy have been made possible by studies that have used the Rovee-Collier's mobile conjugate reinforcement paradigm and its variants. One function that has been attributed to long-term memory is the formation of expectations (Rovee-Collier & Hayne, 1987); consequently, a long-term memory representation should be established during expectation formation. To examine this prediction and potentially open the door on a new paradigm for exploring infants' long-term memory, using the Visual Expectation Paradigm (Haith, Hazan, & Goodman, 1988), 3-month-old infants were trained to form an expectation for predictable color and spatial information of picture events and emit anticipatory eye movements to those events. One day later, infants' anticipatory eye movements decreased in number relative to the end of training when the predictable colors were changed but not when the spatial location of the predictable color events was changed. These findings confirm that information encoded during expectation formation are stored in long-term memory, as hypothesized by Rovee-Collier and colleagues. Further, this research suggests that eye movements are potentially viable measures of long-term memory in infancy, providing confirmatory evidence for early mnemonic processes. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  19. Using support vector machines to identify literacy skills: Evidence from eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lou, Ya; Liu, Yanping; Kaakinen, Johanna K; Li, Xingshan

    2017-06-01

    Is inferring readers' literacy skills possible by analyzing their eye movements during text reading? This study used Support Vector Machines (SVM) to analyze eye movement data from 61 undergraduate students who read a multiple-paragraph, multiple-topic expository text. Forward fixation time, first-pass rereading time, second-pass fixation time, and regression path reading time on different regions of the text were provided as features. The SVM classification algorithm assisted in distinguishing high-literacy-skilled readers from low-literacy-skilled readers with 80.3 % accuracy. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of combining eye tracking and machine learning techniques to detect readers with low literacy skills, and suggest that such approaches can be potentially used in predicting other cognitive abilities.

  20. Perceptual learning modifies untrained pursuit eye movements

    OpenAIRE

    Szpiro, Sarit F. A.; Spering, Miriam; Carrasco, Marisa

    2014-01-01

    Perceptual learning improves detection and discrimination of relevant visual information in mature humans, revealing sensory plasticity. Whether visual perceptual learning affects motor responses is unknown. Here we implemented a protocol that enabled us to address this question. We tested a perceptual response (motion direction estimation, in which observers overestimate motion direction away from a reference) and a motor response (voluntary smooth pursuit eye movements). Perceptual training...

  1. Monocular and binocular visual impairment in the UK Biobank study: prevalence, associations and diagnoses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McKibbin, Martin; Farragher, Tracey M; Shickle, Darren

    2018-01-01

    To determine the prevalence of, associations with and diagnoses leading to mild visual impairment or worse (logMAR >0.3) in middle-aged adults in the UK Biobank study. Prevalence estimates for monocular and binocular visual impairment were determined for the UK Biobank participants with fundus photographs and spectral domain optical coherence tomography images. Associations with socioeconomic, biometric, lifestyle and medical variables were investigated for cases with visual impairment and matched controls, using multinomial logistic regression models. Self-reported eye history and image grading results were used to identify the primary diagnoses leading to visual impairment for a sample of 25% of cases. For the 65 033 UK Biobank participants, aged 40-69 years and with fundus images, 6682 (10.3%) and 1677 (2.6%) had mild visual impairment or worse in one or both eyes, respectively. Increasing deprivation, age and ethnicity were independently associated with both monocular and binocular visual impairment. No primary diagnosis for the recorded level of visual impairment could be identified for 49.8% of eyes. The most common identifiable diagnoses leading to visual impairment were cataract, amblyopia, uncorrected refractive error and vitreoretinal interface abnormalities. The prevalence of visual impairment in the UK Biobank study cohort is lower than for population-based studies from other industrialised countries. Monocular and binocular visual impairment are associated with increasing deprivation, age and ethnicity. The UK Biobank dataset does not allow confident identification of the causes of visual impairment, and the results may not be applicable to the wider UK population.

  2. Monocular and binocular visual impairment in the UK Biobank study: prevalence, associations and diagnoses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farragher, Tracey M; Shickle, Darren

    2018-01-01

    Objective To determine the prevalence of, associations with and diagnoses leading to mild visual impairment or worse (logMAR >0.3) in middle-aged adults in the UK Biobank study. Methods and analysis Prevalence estimates for monocular and binocular visual impairment were determined for the UK Biobank participants with fundus photographs and spectral domain optical coherence tomography images. Associations with socioeconomic, biometric, lifestyle and medical variables were investigated for cases with visual impairment and matched controls, using multinomial logistic regression models. Self-reported eye history and image grading results were used to identify the primary diagnoses leading to visual impairment for a sample of 25% of cases. Results For the 65 033 UK Biobank participants, aged 40–69 years and with fundus images, 6682 (10.3%) and 1677 (2.6%) had mild visual impairment or worse in one or both eyes, respectively. Increasing deprivation, age and ethnicity were independently associated with both monocular and binocular visual impairment. No primary diagnosis for the recorded level of visual impairment could be identified for 49.8% of eyes. The most common identifiable diagnoses leading to visual impairment were cataract, amblyopia, uncorrected refractive error and vitreoretinal interface abnormalities. Conclusions The prevalence of visual impairment in the UK Biobank study cohort is lower than for population-based studies from other industrialised countries. Monocular and binocular visual impairment are associated with increasing deprivation, age and ethnicity. The UK Biobank dataset does not allow confident identification of the causes of visual impairment, and the results may not be applicable to the wider UK population. PMID:29657974

  3. The Correlation between Clinical Variables and Sleep Onset Rapid Eye Movement Period Frequencies in Narcoleptic Patients

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jin Hwa Jeong

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available Background and Objective A diagnosis of narcolepsy is defined by less than 8 minutes of mean sleep latency, and two or more sleep onset rapid eye movement periods on the Multiple Sleep Latency Test. This study examined the relationship between the sleep onset rapid eye movement period frequencies during Multiple Sleep Latency Test and narcoleptic symptom severity. Methods From March 2004 to August 2009, 126 patients suffering from excessive daytime sleepiness who visited the Sleep Disorders Clinic of St. Vincent’s Hospital at the Catholic University of Korea were tested by polysomnography and Multiple Sleep Latency Test. Subjects were divided into three groups according to the number of sleep onset rapid eye movement periods that appeared on the Multiple Sleep Latency Test. Symptom severity instruments included the Epworth Sleepiness Scale and the Stanford Center for Narcolepsy Sleep Inventory, and various sleep parameters. In addition, we performed human leukocyte antigen genotyping for human leukocyte antigen-DQB1*0602 on all patients. Results Among the three groups classified by the number of sleep onset rapid eye movement periods during Multiple Sleep Latency Test, we found no significant differences in demographic features, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and most polysomnographic findings. However, we observed cataplexy, hypnagogic hallucination, sleep paralysis, and human leukocyte antigen-DQB1*0602 positivity more frequently in groups with higher sleep onset rapid eye movement period frequencies. In addition, the proportions of stage II sleep, REM sleep latency from polysomnography, and mean sleep latency and mean REM sleep latency from the Multiple Sleep Latency Test significantly decreased with increasing sleep onset rapid eye movement period frequency. Conclusions In this study, we demonstrated that sleep onset rapid eye movement period frequency during Multiple Sleep Latency Test correlated with sleep architecture, daytime symptom

  4. Binocular Vision in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Godts, Daisy; Moorkens, Greta; Mathysen, Danny G P

    2016-01-01

    To compare binocular vision measurements between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) patients and healthy controls. Forty-one CFS patients referred by the Reference Centre for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome of the Antwerp University Hospital and forty-one healthy volunteers, matched for age and gender, underwent a complete orthoptic examination. Data of visual acuity, eye position, fusion amplitude, stereopsis, ocular motility, convergence, and accommodation were compared between both groups. Patients with CFS showed highly significant smaller fusion amplitudes (P convergence capacity (P accommodation range (P convergence and accommodation should be routinely examined. CFS patients will benefit from reading glasses either with or without prism correction in an earlier stage compared to their healthy peers. Convergence exercises may be beneficial for CFS patients, despite the fact that they might be very tiring. Further research will be necessary to draw conclusions about the efficacy of treatment, especially regarding convergence exercises. To our knowledge, this is the first prospective study evaluating binocular vision in CFS patients. © 2016 Board of regents of the University of Wisconsin System, American Orthoptic Journal, Volume 66, 2016, ISSN 0065-955X, E-ISSN 1553-4448.

  5. Eye Movements Affect Postural Control in Young and Older Females.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thomas, Neil M; Bampouras, Theodoros M; Donovan, Tim; Dewhurst, Susan

    2016-01-01

    Visual information is used for postural stabilization in humans. However, little is known about how eye movements prevalent in everyday life interact with the postural control system in older individuals. Therefore, the present study assessed the effects of stationary gaze fixations, smooth pursuits, and saccadic eye movements, with combinations of absent, fixed and oscillating large-field visual backgrounds to generate different forms of retinal flow, on postural control in healthy young and older females. Participants were presented with computer generated visual stimuli, whilst postural sway and gaze fixations were simultaneously assessed with a force platform and eye tracking equipment, respectively. The results showed that fixed backgrounds and stationary gaze fixations attenuated postural sway. In contrast, oscillating backgrounds and smooth pursuits increased postural sway. There were no differences regarding saccades. There were also no differences in postural sway or gaze errors between age groups in any visual condition. The stabilizing effect of the fixed visual stimuli show how retinal flow and extraocular factors guide postural adjustments. The destabilizing effect of oscillating visual backgrounds and smooth pursuits may be related to more challenging conditions for determining body shifts from retinal flow, and more complex extraocular signals, respectively. Because the older participants matched the young group's performance in all conditions, decreases of posture and gaze control during stance may not be a direct consequence of healthy aging. Further research examining extraocular and retinal mechanisms of balance control and the effects of eye movements, during locomotion, is needed to better inform fall prevention interventions.

  6. Saccadic eye movement applications for psychiatric disorders

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bittencourt J

    2013-09-01

    Med/Medline, ISI Web of Knowledge, Cochrane, and SciELO databases were reviewed. Results: Saccadic eye movement appears to be heavily involved in psychiatric diseases covered in this review via a direct mechanism. The changes seen in the execution of eye movement tasks in patients with psychopathologies of various studies confirm that eye movement is associated with the cognitive and motor system. Conclusion: Saccadic eye movement changes appear to be heavily involved in the psychiatric disorders covered in this review and may be considered a possible marker of some disorders. The few existing studies that approach the topic demonstrate a need to improve the experimental paradigms, as well as the methods of analysis. Most of them report behavioral variables (latency/reaction time, though electrophysiological measures are absent. Keywords: depression, bipolar disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety disorder

  7. Eye Movements and Overt Rehearsal in Word Recall

    Science.gov (United States)

    Geiselman, Ralph E.; Bellezza, Francis S.

    1977-01-01

    Rates of overt rehearsal and eye movement were compared to each other, and were also compared as predictors of immediate and delayed recall. Concludes that total looking time was the best predictor of long-term retention and that recall performance following overt rehearsal was different from recall performance following silent study. (Editor/RK)

  8. The effect of image sharpness on quantitative eye movement data and on image quality evaluation while viewing natural images

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vuori, Tero; Olkkonen, Maria

    2006-01-01

    The aim of the study is to test both customer image quality rating (subjective image quality) and physical measurement of user behavior (eye movements tracking) to find customer satisfaction differences in imaging technologies. Methodological aim is to find out whether eye movements could be quantitatively used in image quality preference studies. In general, we want to map objective or physically measurable image quality to subjective evaluations and eye movement data. We conducted a series of image quality tests, in which the test subjects evaluated image quality while we recorded their eye movements. Results show that eye movement parameters consistently change according to the instructions given to the user, and according to physical image quality, e.g. saccade duration increased with increasing blur. Results indicate that eye movement tracking could be used to differentiate image quality evaluation strategies that the users have. Results also show that eye movements would help mapping between technological and subjective image quality. Furthermore, these results give some empirical emphasis to top-down perception processes in image quality perception and evaluation by showing differences between perceptual processes in situations when cognitive task varies.

  9. Real-time recording and classification of eye movements in an immersive virtual environment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Diaz, Gabriel; Cooper, Joseph; Kit, Dmitry; Hayhoe, Mary

    2013-10-10

    Despite the growing popularity of virtual reality environments, few laboratories are equipped to investigate eye movements within these environments. This primer is intended to reduce the time and effort required to incorporate eye-tracking equipment into a virtual reality environment. We discuss issues related to the initial startup and provide algorithms necessary for basic analysis. Algorithms are provided for the calculation of gaze angle within a virtual world using a monocular eye-tracker in a three-dimensional environment. In addition, we provide algorithms for the calculation of the angular distance between the gaze and a relevant virtual object and for the identification of fixations, saccades, and pursuit eye movements. Finally, we provide tools that temporally synchronize gaze data and the visual stimulus and enable real-time assembly of a video-based record of the experiment using the Quicktime MOV format, available at http://sourceforge.net/p/utdvrlibraries/. This record contains the visual stimulus, the gaze cursor, and associated numerical data and can be used for data exportation, visual inspection, and validation of calculated gaze movements.

  10. Contrast and assimilation in motion perception and smooth pursuit eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spering, Miriam; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

    2007-09-01

    The analysis of visual motion serves many different functions ranging from object motion perception to the control of self-motion. The perception of visual motion and the oculomotor tracking of a moving object are known to be closely related and are assumed to be controlled by shared brain areas. We compared perceived velocity and the velocity of smooth pursuit eye movements in human observers in a paradigm that required the segmentation of target object motion from context motion. In each trial, a pursuit target and a visual context were independently perturbed simultaneously to briefly increase or decrease in speed. Observers had to accurately track the target and estimate target speed during the perturbation interval. Here we show that the same motion signals are processed in fundamentally different ways for perception and steady-state smooth pursuit eye movements. For the computation of perceived velocity, motion of the context was subtracted from target motion (motion contrast), whereas pursuit velocity was determined by the motion average (motion assimilation). We conclude that the human motion system uses these computations to optimally accomplish different functions: image segmentation for object motion perception and velocity estimation for the control of smooth pursuit eye movements.

  11. Showing a model's eye movements in examples does not improve learning of problem-solving tasks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Marlen, Tim; van Wermeskerken, Margot; Jarodzka, Halszka; van Gog, Tamara

    2016-01-01

    Eye movement modeling examples (EMME) are demonstrations of a computer-based task by a human model (e.g., a teacher), with the model's eye movements superimposed on the task to guide learners' attention. EMME have been shown to enhance learning of perceptual classification tasks; however, it is an

  12. Optimal sensorimotor control in eye movement sequences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Munuera, Jérôme; Morel, Pierre; Duhamel, Jean-René; Deneve, Sophie

    2009-03-11

    Fast and accurate motor behavior requires combining noisy and delayed sensory information with knowledge of self-generated body motion; much evidence indicates that humans do this in a near-optimal manner during arm movements. However, it is unclear whether this principle applies to eye movements. We measured the relative contributions of visual sensory feedback and the motor efference copy (and/or proprioceptive feedback) when humans perform two saccades in rapid succession, the first saccade to a visual target and the second to a memorized target. Unbeknownst to the subject, we introduced an artificial motor error by randomly "jumping" the visual target during the first saccade. The correction of the memory-guided saccade allowed us to measure the relative contributions of visual feedback and efferent copy (and/or proprioceptive feedback) to motor-plan updating. In a control experiment, we extinguished the target during the saccade rather than changing its location to measure the relative contribution of motor noise and target localization error to saccade variability without any visual feedback. The motor noise contribution increased with saccade amplitude, but remained <30% of the total variability. Subjects adjusted the gain of their visual feedback for different saccade amplitudes as a function of its reliability. Even during trials where subjects performed a corrective saccade to compensate for the target-jump, the correction by the visual feedback, while stronger, remained far below 100%. In all conditions, an optimal controller predicted the visual feedback gain well, suggesting that humans combine optimally their efferent copy and sensory feedback when performing eye movements.

  13. Psilocybin links binocular rivalry switch rate to attention and subjective arousal levels in humans.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carter, Olivia L; Hasler, Felix; Pettigrew, John D; Wallis, Guy M; Liu, Guang B; Vollenweider, Franz X

    2007-12-01

    Binocular rivalry occurs when different images are simultaneously presented to each eye. During continual viewing of this stimulus, the observer will experience repeated switches between visual awareness of the two images. Previous studies have suggested that a slow rate of perceptual switching may be associated with clinical and drug-induced psychosis. The objective of the study was to explore the proposed relationship between binocular rivalry switch rate and subjective changes in psychological state associated with 5-HT2A receptor activation. This study used psilocybin, the hallucinogen found naturally in Psilocybe mushrooms that had previously been found to induce psychosis-like symptoms via the 5-HT2A receptor. The effects of psilocybin (215 microg/kg) were considered alone and after pretreatment with the selective 5-HT2A antagonist ketanserin (50 mg) in ten healthy human subjects. Psilocybin significantly reduced the rate of binocular rivalry switching and increased the proportion of transitional/mixed percept experience. Pretreatment with ketanserin blocked the majority of psilocybin's "positive" psychosis-like hallucinogenic symptoms. However, ketanserin had no influence on either the psilocybin-induced slowing of binocular rivalry or the drug's "negative-type symptoms" associated with reduced arousal and vigilance. Together, these findings link changes in binocular rivalry switching rate to subjective levels of arousal and attention. In addition, it suggests that psilocybin's effect on binocular rivalry is unlikely to be mediated by the 5-HT2A receptor.

  14. Defense Mechanisms, Psychosomatic Symptomatology, and Conjugate Lateral Eye Movements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gur, Raquel E.; Gur, Ruben C.

    1975-01-01

    Subjects were classified into left movers, right movers, and bidirectionals according to the characteristic direction of their eye movements in response to questions. The three groups were compared on their preferential use of defense mechanisms and on the number of psychosomatic complaints. (Author)

  15. Eye movements when reading sentences with handwritten words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perea, Manuel; Marcet, Ana; Uixera, Beatriz; Vergara-Martínez, Marta

    2016-10-17

    The examination of how we read handwritten words (i.e., the original form of writing) has typically been disregarded in the literature on reading. Previous research using word recognition tasks has shown that lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) are magnified when reading difficult handwritten words. To examine this issue in a more ecological scenario, we registered the participants' eye movements when reading handwritten sentences that varied in the degree of legibility (i.e., sentences composed of words in easy vs. difficult handwritten style). For comparison purposes, we included a condition with printed sentences. Results showed a larger reading cost for sentences with difficult handwritten words than for sentences with easy handwritten words, which in turn showed a reading cost relative to the sentences with printed words. Critically, the effect of word frequency was greater for difficult handwritten words than for easy handwritten words or printed words in the total times on a target word, but not on first-fixation durations or gaze durations. We examine the implications of these findings for models of eye movement control in reading.

  16. Relating lateralization of eye use to body motion in the avoidance behavior of the chameleon (Chamaeleo chameleon).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lustig, Avichai; Ketter-Katz, Hadas; Katzir, Gadi

    2013-01-01

    Lateralization is mostly analyzed for single traits, but seldom for two or more traits while performing a given task (e.g. object manipulation). We examined lateralization in eye use and in body motion that co-occur during avoidance behaviour of the common chameleon, Chamaeleo chameleon. A chameleon facing a moving threat smoothly repositions its body on the side of its perch distal to the threat, to minimize its visual exposure. We previously demonstrated that during the response (i) eye use and body motion were, each, lateralized at the tested group level (N = 26), (ii) in body motion, we observed two similar-sized sub-groups, one exhibiting a greater reduction in body exposure to threat approaching from the left and one--to threat approaching from the right (left- and right-biased subgroups), (iii) the left-biased sub-group exhibited weak lateralization of body exposure under binocular threat viewing and none under monocular viewing while the right-biased sub-group exhibited strong lateralization under both monocular and binocular threat viewing. In avoidance, how is eye use related to body motion at the entire group and at the sub-group levels? We demonstrate that (i) in the left-biased sub-group, eye use is not lateralized, (ii) in the right-biased sub-group, eye use is lateralized under binocular, but not monocular viewing of the threat, (iii) the dominance of the right-biased sub-group determines the lateralization of the entire group tested. We conclude that in chameleons, patterns of lateralization of visual function and body motion are inter-related at a subtle level. Presently, the patterns cannot be compared with humans' or related to the unique visual system of chameleons, with highly independent eye movements, complete optic nerve decussation and relatively few inter-hemispheric commissures. We present a model to explain the possible inter-hemispheric differences in dominance in chameleons' visual control of body motion during avoidance.

  17. Relating lateralization of eye use to body motion in the avoidance behavior of the chameleon (Chamaeleo chameleon.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Avichai Lustig

    Full Text Available Lateralization is mostly analyzed for single traits, but seldom for two or more traits while performing a given task (e.g. object manipulation. We examined lateralization in eye use and in body motion that co-occur during avoidance behaviour of the common chameleon, Chamaeleo chameleon. A chameleon facing a moving threat smoothly repositions its body on the side of its perch distal to the threat, to minimize its visual exposure. We previously demonstrated that during the response (i eye use and body motion were, each, lateralized at the tested group level (N = 26, (ii in body motion, we observed two similar-sized sub-groups, one exhibiting a greater reduction in body exposure to threat approaching from the left and one--to threat approaching from the right (left- and right-biased subgroups, (iii the left-biased sub-group exhibited weak lateralization of body exposure under binocular threat viewing and none under monocular viewing while the right-biased sub-group exhibited strong lateralization under both monocular and binocular threat viewing. In avoidance, how is eye use related to body motion at the entire group and at the sub-group levels? We demonstrate that (i in the left-biased sub-group, eye use is not lateralized, (ii in the right-biased sub-group, eye use is lateralized under binocular, but not monocular viewing of the threat, (iii the dominance of the right-biased sub-group determines the lateralization of the entire group tested. We conclude that in chameleons, patterns of lateralization of visual function and body motion are inter-related at a subtle level. Presently, the patterns cannot be compared with humans' or related to the unique visual system of chameleons, with highly independent eye movements, complete optic nerve decussation and relatively few inter-hemispheric commissures. We present a model to explain the possible inter-hemispheric differences in dominance in chameleons' visual control of body motion during avoidance.

  18. Normal Morning Melanin-Concentrating Hormone Levels and No Association with Rapid Eye Movement or Non-Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Parameters in Narcolepsy Type 1 and Type 2

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schrölkamp, Maren; Jennum, Poul J; Gammeltoft, Steen

    2017-01-01

    in rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep regulation. Hypocretin neurons reciprocally interact with MCH neurons. We hypothesized that altered MCH secretion contributes to the symptoms and sleep abnormalities of narcolepsy and that this is reflected in morning cerebrospinal fluid...... MCH levels. CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that MCH levels in CSF collected in the morning are normal in narcolepsy and not associated with the clinical symptoms, REM sleep abnormalities, nor number of muscle movements during REM or NREM sleep of the patients. We conclude that morning lumbar CSF MCH......STUDY OBJECTIVES: Other than hypocretin-1 (HCRT-1) deficiency in narcolepsy type 1 (NT1), the neurochemical imbalance of NT1 and narcolepsy type 2 (NT2) with normal HCRT-1 levels is largely unknown. The neuropeptide melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) is mainly secreted during sleep and is involved...

  19. Head and eye movement as pointing modalities for eyewear computers

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jalaliniya, Shahram; Mardanbeigi, Diako; Pederson, Thomas

    2014-01-01

    examined using head and eye movements to point on a graphical user interface of a wearable computer. The performance of users in head and eye pointing has been compared with mouse pointing as a baseline method. The result of our experiment showed that the eye pointing is significantly faster than head......While the new generation of eyewear computers have increased expectations of a wearable computer, providing input to these devices is still challenging. Hand-held devices, voice commands, and hand gestures have already been explored to provide input to the wearable devices. In this paper, we...

  20. The right look for the job: decoding cognitive processes involved in the task from spatial eye-movement patterns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Król, Magdalena Ewa; Król, Michał

    2018-02-20

    The aim of the study was not only to demonstrate whether eye-movement-based task decoding was possible but also to investigate whether eye-movement patterns can be used to identify cognitive processes behind the tasks. We compared eye-movement patterns elicited under different task conditions, with tasks differing systematically with regard to the types of cognitive processes involved in solving them. We used four tasks, differing along two dimensions: spatial (global vs. local) processing (Navon, Cognit Psychol, 9(3):353-383 1977) and semantic (deep vs. shallow) processing (Craik and Lockhart, J Verbal Learn Verbal Behav, 11(6):671-684 1972). We used eye-movement patterns obtained from two time periods: fixation cross preceding the target stimulus and the target stimulus. We found significant effects of both spatial and semantic processing, but in case of the latter, the effect might be an artefact of insufficient task control. We found above chance task classification accuracy for both time periods: 51.4% for the period of stimulus presentation and 34.8% for the period of fixation cross presentation. Therefore, we show that task can be to some extent decoded from the preparatory eye-movements before the stimulus is displayed. This suggests that anticipatory eye-movements reflect the visual scanning strategy employed for the task at hand. Finally, this study also demonstrates that decoding is possible even from very scant eye-movement data similar to Coco and Keller, J Vis 14(3):11-11 (2014). This means that task decoding is not limited to tasks that naturally take longer to perform and yield multi-second eye-movement recordings.

  1. Desensitizing Addiction : Using Eye Movements to Reduce the Intensity of Substance-Related Mental Imagery and Craving

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Littel, M.; van den Hout, M.A.; Engelhard, I.M.

    2016-01-01

    Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is an effective treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder. During this treatment, patients recall traumatic memories while making horizontal eye movements (EM). Studies have shown that EM not only desensitize negative memories but also positive

  2. Mental Imagery as Revealed by Eye Movements and Spoken Predicates: A Test of Neurolinguistic Programming.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elich, Matthew; And Others

    1985-01-01

    Tested Bandler and Grinder's proposal that eye movement direction and spoken predicates are indicative of sensory modality of imagery. Subjects reported images in the three modes, but no relation between imagery and eye movements or predicates was found. Visual images were most vivid and often reported. Most subjects rated themselves as visual,…

  3. Rapid eye movement sleep disturbances in Huntington disease

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Arnulf, I.; Nielsen, J.; Lohmann, E.

    2008-01-01

    and shortened rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and increased periodic leg movements. Three HD patients (12%) had REM sleep behavior disorders. No sleep abnormality correlated with CAG repeat length. Reduced REM sleep duration (but not REM sleep behavior disorders) was present in premanifest carriers and patients...... with very mild HD and worsened with disease severity. In contrast to narcoleptic patients, HD patients had no cataplexy, hypnagogic hallucinations, or sleep paralysis. Four HD patients had abnormally low (sleep latencies, but none had multiple sleep-onset REM periods. Conclusions......: The sleep phenotype of HD includes insomnia, advanced sleep phase, periodic leg movements, REM sleep behavior disorders, and reduced REM sleep but not narcolepsy. Reduced REM sleep may precede chorea. Mutant huntingtin may exert an effect on REM sleep and motor control during sleep Udgivelsesdato: 2008/4...

  4. Comparison for aphasic and control subjects of eye movements hypothesized in neurolinguistic programming.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dooley, K O; Farmer, A

    1988-08-01

    Neurolinguistic programming's hypothesized eye movements were measured independently using videotapes of 10 nonfluent aphasic and 10 control subjects matched for age and sex. Chi-squared analysis indicated that eye-position responses were significantly different for the groups. Although earlier research has not supported the hypothesized eye positions for normal subjects, the present findings support the contention that eye-position responses may differ between neurologically normal and aphasic individuals.

  5. Quality of life in patients with an idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder in Korea.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Keun Tae; Motamedi, Gholam K; Cho, Yong Won

    2017-08-01

    There have been few quality of life studies in patients with idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder. We compared the quality of life in idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder patients to healthy controls, patients with hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus without complication and idiopathic restless legs syndrome. Sixty patients with idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder (24 female; mean age: 61.43 ± 8.99) were enrolled retrospectively. The diagnosis was established based on sleep history, overnight polysomnography, neurological examination and Mini-Mental State Examination to exclude secondary rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder. All subjects completed questionnaires, including the Short Form 36-item Health Survey for quality of life. The total quality of life score in idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder (70.63 ± 20.83) was lower than in the healthy control group (83.38 ± 7.96) but higher than in the hypertension (60.55 ± 24.82), diabetes mellitus (62.42 ± 19.37) and restless legs syndrome (61.77 ± 19.25) groups. The total score of idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder patients had a negative correlation with the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (r = -0.498, P sleep behaviour disorder had a significant negative impact on quality of life, although this effect was less than that of other chronic disorders. This negative effect might be related to a depressive mood associated with the disease. © 2016 European Sleep Research Society.

  6. Reading paths, eye drawings, and word islands: Movement in Un coup de dés.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Loos, Ruth

    2012-01-01

    In the framework of an artistic-scientific project on eye-movements during reading, my collaborators from the psychology department at the KU Leuven and I had a close look at the poem "Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard" ("A throw of the dice will never abolish chance") by Stéphane Mallarmé. The poem is an intriguing example of nonlinear writing, of a typographic game with white and space, and of an interweaving of different reading lines. These specific features evoke multiple reading methods. The animation, Movement in Un coup de dés, created during the still-ongoing collaboration interweaves a horizontal and a vertical reading method, two spontaneous ways of reading that point at the poem's intriguing ambiguity. Not only are we interested in different methods of reading; the scientific representations of eye movements themselves are a rich source of images with much artistic potential. We explore eye movements as "eye drawings" in new images characterized both by a scientific and by an artistic perspective.

  7. Reading Paths, Eye Drawings, and Word Islands: Movement in Un coup de dés

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ruth Loos

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available In the framework of an artistic–scientific project on eye-movements during reading, my collaborators from the psychology department at the KU Leuven and I had a close look at the poem “Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard” (“A throw of the dice will never abolish chance” by Stéphane Mallarmé. The poem is an intriguing example of nonlinear writing, of a typographic game with white and space, and of an interweaving of different reading lines. These specific features evoke multiple reading methods. The animation, Movement in Un coup de dés, created during the still-ongoing collaboration interweaves a horizontal and a vertical reading method, two spontaneous ways of reading that point at the poem's intriguing ambiguity. Not only are we interested in different methods of reading; the scientific representations of eye movements themselves are a rich source of images with much artistic potential. We explore eye movements as “eye drawings” in new images characterized both by a scientific and by an artistic perspective.

  8. Real-Time Control of a Video Game Using Eye Movements and Two Temporal EEG Sensors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Belkacem, Abdelkader Nasreddine; Saetia, Supat; Zintus-art, Kalanyu; Shin, Duk; Kambara, Hiroyuki; Yoshimura, Natsue; Berrached, Nasreddine; Koike, Yasuharu

    2015-01-01

    EEG-controlled gaming applications range widely from strictly medical to completely nonmedical applications. Games can provide not only entertainment but also strong motivation for practicing, thereby achieving better control with rehabilitation system. In this paper we present real-time control of video game with eye movements for asynchronous and noninvasive communication system using two temporal EEG sensors. We used wavelets to detect the instance of eye movement and time-series characteristics to distinguish between six classes of eye movement. A control interface was developed to test the proposed algorithm in real-time experiments with opened and closed eyes. Using visual feedback, a mean classification accuracy of 77.3% was obtained for control with six commands. And a mean classification accuracy of 80.2% was obtained using auditory feedback for control with five commands. The algorithm was then applied for controlling direction and speed of character movement in two-dimensional video game. Results showed that the proposed algorithm had an efficient response speed and timing with a bit rate of 30 bits/min, demonstrating its efficacy and robustness in real-time control.

  9. First Peruvian binoculars

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baldwin, Guillermo; Gonzales, Franco; Pérez S., Carlos

    2017-11-01

    In Peru, as in almost all Latin America, precision optical industry is almost null. One reason is the scarcity of human and technological resources. But, a few years ago, a masters and diploma university program in optical engineering was started in our university: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú1 (PUCP) in Lima. Also, an optical shop on precision optics was implemented. Some students were trained at CIO in Leon, Mexico. In order to motivate optical business startups in Peru we planned to show some possibilities of optical devices fabrication trough doing prototypes. So, we started doing a small reflective telescope for moon observation2, 3, where mirror and ocular polishing and opto-mechanics had priority. Aluminum evaporation was included. Now, we do a new step developing a binocular, as we know, it never was made before in Peru. This work includes the binocular geometric optics and opto-mechanical designs, the ocular manufacturing, and the binocular characterization of an 8x35 binocular for amateur observation.

  10. Bilateral saccadic eye movements and tactile stimulation, but not auditory stimulation, enhance memory retrieval

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Nieuwenhuis, S.; Elzinga, B.M.; Ras, P.H.; Berends, F.; Duijs, P.; Samara, Z.; Slagter, H.A.

    2013-01-01

    Recent research has shown superior memory retrieval when participants make a series of horizontal saccadic eye movements between the memory encoding phase and the retrieval phase compared to participants who do not move their eyes or move their eyes vertically. It has been hypothesized that the

  11. Influence of social presence on eye movements in visual search tasks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Na; Yu, Ruifeng

    2017-12-01

    This study employed an eye-tracking technique to investigate the influence of social presence on eye movements in visual search tasks. A total of 20 male subjects performed visual search tasks in a 2 (target presence: present vs. absent) × 2 (task complexity: complex vs. simple) × 2 (social presence: alone vs. a human audience) within-subject experiment. Results indicated that the presence of an audience could evoke a social facilitation effect on response time in visual search tasks. Compared with working alone, the participants made fewer and shorter fixations, larger saccades and shorter scan path in simple search tasks and more and longer fixations, smaller saccades and longer scan path in complex search tasks when working with an audience. The saccade velocity and pupil diameter in the audience-present condition were larger than those in the working-alone condition. No significant change in target fixation number was observed between two social presence conditions. Practitioner Summary: This study employed an eye-tracking technique to examine the influence of social presence on eye movements in visual search tasks. Results clarified the variation mechanism and characteristics of oculomotor scanning induced by social presence in visual search.

  12. The subtlety of simple eyes: the tuning of visual fields to perceptual challenges in birds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martin, Graham R.

    2014-01-01

    Birds show interspecific variation both in the size of the fields of individual eyes and in the ways that these fields are brought together to produce the total visual field. Variation is found in the dimensions of all main parameters: binocular region, cyclopean field and blind areas. There is a phylogenetic signal with respect to maximum width of the binocular field in that passerine species have significantly broader field widths than non-passerines; broadest fields are found among crows (Corvidae). Among non-passerines, visual fields show considerable variation within families and even within some genera. It is argued that (i) the main drivers of differences in visual fields are associated with perceptual challenges that arise through different modes of foraging, and (ii) the primary function of binocularity in birds lies in the control of bill position rather than in the control of locomotion. The informational function of binocular vision does not lie in binocularity per se (two eyes receiving slightly different information simultaneously about the same objects from which higher-order depth information is extracted), but in the contralateral projection of the visual field of each eye. Contralateral projection ensures that each eye receives information from a symmetrically expanding optic flow-field from which direction of travel and time to contact targets can be extracted, particularly with respect to the control of bill position. PMID:24395967

  13. Perceptual Specificity Effects in Rereading: Evidence from Eye Movements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sheridan, Heather; Reingold, Eyal M.

    2012-01-01

    The present experiments examined perceptual specificity effects using a rereading paradigm. Eye movements were monitored while participants read the same target word twice, in two different low-constraint sentence frames. The congruency of perceptual processing was manipulated by either presenting the target word in the same distortion typography…

  14. The Effect of Cataract on Eye Movement Perimetry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    G. Thepass

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Purpose. To determine how different grades of cataract affect sensitivity threshold and saccadic reaction time (SRT in eye movement perimetry (EMP. Methods. In EMP, the visual field is tested by assessing the saccades that a subject makes towards peripheral stimuli using an eye tracker. Forty-eight cataract patients underwent pre- and postoperative EMP examination in both eyes. The subjects had to fix a central stimulus presented on the eye tracker monitor and to look at any detected peripheral stimulus upon its appearance. A multilevel mixed model was used to determine the factors that affected the sensitivity threshold and the SRT as a function of cataract grade. Results. We found no effect of cataract severity (LOCS III grades I through IV on SRT and the sensitivity thresholds. In cataract of LOCS III grade V, however, we found an increase by 27% and 21% (p<0.001, respectively, compared to the SRT and the sensitivity threshold in LOCS III grade I. Eyes that underwent cataract surgery showed no change in mean SRTs and sensitivity thresholds after surgery in LOCS III grade IV and lower. Conclusion. The present study shows that EMP can be readily used in patients with cataract with LOCS III grade IV and below.

  15. Keep your eyes on the ball: smooth pursuit eye movements enhance prediction of visual motion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spering, Miriam; Schütz, Alexander C; Braun, Doris I; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

    2011-04-01

    Success of motor behavior often depends on the ability to predict the path of moving objects. Here we asked whether tracking a visual object with smooth pursuit eye movements helps to predict its motion direction. We developed a paradigm, "eye soccer," in which observers had to either track or fixate a visual target (ball) and judge whether it would have hit or missed a stationary vertical line segment (goal). Ball and goal were presented briefly for 100-500 ms and disappeared from the screen together before the perceptual judgment was prompted. In pursuit conditions, the ball moved towards the goal; in fixation conditions, the goal moved towards the stationary ball, resulting in similar retinal stimulation during pursuit and fixation. We also tested the condition in which the goal was fixated and the ball moved. Motion direction prediction was significantly better in pursuit than in fixation trials, regardless of whether ball or goal served as fixation target. In both fixation and pursuit trials, prediction performance was better when eye movements were accurate. Performance also increased with shorter ball-goal distance and longer presentation duration. A longer trajectory did not affect performance. During pursuit, an efference copy signal might provide additional motion information, leading to the advantage in motion prediction.

  16. Reliability and Validity of Eye Movement Measures of Children's Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Foster, Tori E.; Ardoin, Scott P.; Binder, Katherine S.

    2018-01-01

    Although strong claims have been made regarding the educational utility of eye tracking, such statements seem somewhat unfounded in the absence of clear evidence regarding the technical adequacy of eye movement (EM) data. Past studies have yielded direct and indirect evidence concerning the utility of EMs as measures of reading, but recent…

  17. A Randomized Trial of a Binocular iPad Game Versus Part-Time Patching in Children Aged 13 to 16 Years With Amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Manh, Vivian M; Holmes, Jonathan M; Lazar, Elizabeth L; Kraker, Raymond T; Wallace, David K; Kulp, Marjean T; Galvin, Jennifer A; Shah, Birva K; Davis, Patricia L

    2018-02-01

    To compare visual acuity (VA) improvement in teenagers with amblyopia treated with a binocular iPad game vs part-time patching. One hundred participants aged 13 to 75% of prescribed treatment. In teenagers aged 13 to <17 years, improvement in amblyopic eye VA with the binocular iPad game used in this study was not found to be better than patching, and was possibly worse. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether the minimal treatment response to binocular treatment was owing to poor treatment adherence or lack of treatment effect. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. Attention Switching during Scene Perception: How Goals Influence the Time Course of Eye Movements across Advertisements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wedel, Michel; Pieters, Rik; Liechty, John

    2008-01-01

    Eye movements across advertisements express a temporal pattern of bursts of respectively relatively short and long saccades, and this pattern is systematically influenced by activated scene perception goals. This was revealed by a continuous-time hidden Markov model applied to eye movements of 220 participants exposed to 17 ads under a…

  19. The Effects of β-Adrenergic Blockade on the Degrading Effects of Eye Movements on Negative Autobiographical Memories

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Littel, Marianne; Kenemans, J. Leon; Baas, Johanna M.P.; Logemann, H. N.Alexander; Rijken, Nellie; Remijn, Malou; Hassink, Rutger J.; Engelhard, Iris M.; van den Hout, Marcel A.

    2017-01-01

    Background Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is an effective treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder. During EMDR, patients make horizontal eye movements (EMs) while simultaneously recalling a traumatic memory, which renders the memory less vivid and emotional when it is later

  20. Saccadic Eye Movements Impose a Natural Bottleneck on Visual Short-Term Memory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ohl, Sven; Rolfs, Martin

    2017-01-01

    Visual short-term memory (VSTM) is a crucial repository of information when events unfold rapidly before our eyes, yet it maintains only a fraction of the sensory information encoded by the visual system. Here, we tested the hypothesis that saccadic eye movements provide a natural bottleneck for the transition of fragile content in sensory memory…

  1. Real-Time Control of a Video Game Using Eye Movements and Two Temporal EEG Sensors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abdelkader Nasreddine Belkacem

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available EEG-controlled gaming applications range widely from strictly medical to completely nonmedical applications. Games can provide not only entertainment but also strong motivation for practicing, thereby achieving better control with rehabilitation system. In this paper we present real-time control of video game with eye movements for asynchronous and noninvasive communication system using two temporal EEG sensors. We used wavelets to detect the instance of eye movement and time-series characteristics to distinguish between six classes of eye movement. A control interface was developed to test the proposed algorithm in real-time experiments with opened and closed eyes. Using visual feedback, a mean classification accuracy of 77.3% was obtained for control with six commands. And a mean classification accuracy of 80.2% was obtained using auditory feedback for control with five commands. The algorithm was then applied for controlling direction and speed of character movement in two-dimensional video game. Results showed that the proposed algorithm had an efficient response speed and timing with a bit rate of 30 bits/min, demonstrating its efficacy and robustness in real-time control.

  2. Spatial constancy of attention across eye movements is mediated by the presence of visual objects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lisi, Matteo; Cavanagh, Patrick; Zorzi, Marco

    2015-05-01

    Recent studies have shown that attentional facilitation lingers at the retinotopic coordinates of a previously attended position after an eye movement. These results are intriguing, because the retinotopic location becomes behaviorally irrelevant once the eyes have moved. Critically, in these studies participants were asked to maintain attention on a blank location of the screen. In the present study, we examined whether the continuing presence of a visual object at the cued location could affect the allocation of attention across eye movements. We used a trans-saccadic cueing paradigm in which the relevant positions could be defined or not by visual objects (simple square outlines). We find an attentional benefit at the spatiotopic location of the cue only when the object (the placeholder) has been continuously present at that location. We conclude that the presence of an object at the attended location is a critical factor for the maintenance of spatial constancy of attention across eye movements, a finding that helps to reconcile previous conflicting results.

  3. Eye Movements Reveal How Task Difficulty Moulds Visual Search

    Science.gov (United States)

    Young, Angela H.; Hulleman, Johan

    2013-01-01

    In two experiments we investigated the relationship between eye movements and performance in visual search tasks of varying difficulty. Experiment 1 provided evidence that a single process is used for search among static and moving items. Moreover, we estimated the functional visual field (FVF) from the gaze coordinates and found that its size…

  4. Bilateral Saccadic Eye Movements and Tactile Stimulation, but Not Auditory Stimulation, Enhance Memory Retrieval

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nieuwenhuis, Sander; Elzinga, Bernet M.; Ras, Priscilla H.; Berends, Floris; Duijs, Peter; Samara, Zoe; Slagter, Heleen A.

    2013-01-01

    Recent research has shown superior memory retrieval when participants make a series of horizontal saccadic eye movements between the memory encoding phase and the retrieval phase compared to participants who do not move their eyes or move their eyes vertically. It has been hypothesized that the rapidly alternating activation of the two hemispheres…

  5. Eye Movements Index Implicit Memory Expression in Fear Conditioning.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lauren S Hopkins

    Full Text Available The role of contingency awareness in simple associative learning experiments with human participants is currently debated. Since prior work suggests that eye movements can index mnemonic processes that occur without awareness, we used eye tracking to better understand the role of awareness in learning aversive Pavlovian conditioning. A complex real-world scene containing four embedded household items was presented to participants while skin conductance, eye movements, and pupil size were recorded. One item embedded in the scene served as the conditional stimulus (CS. One exemplar of that item (e.g. a white pot was paired with shock 100 percent of the time (CS+ while a second exemplar (e.g. a gray pot was never paired with shock (CS-. The remaining items were paired with shock on half of the trials. Participants rated their expectation of receiving a shock during each trial, and these expectancy ratings were used to identify when (i.e. on what trial each participant became aware of the programmed contingencies. Disproportionate viewing of the CS was found both before and after explicit contingency awareness, and patterns of viewing distinguished the CS+ from the CS-. These observations are consistent with "dual process" models of fear conditioning, as they indicate that learning can be expressed in patterns of viewing prior to explicit contingency awareness.

  6. Advantages in exploring a new environment with the left eye in lizards.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonati, Beatrice; Csermely, Davide; Sovrano, Valeria Anna

    2013-07-01

    Lizards (Podarcis muralis) preferentially use the left eye during spatial exploration in a binocular condition. Here we allowed 44 adult wild lizards to explore an unknown maze for 20 min under a temporary monocular condition whilst recording their movements, particularly the direction of turns made whilst walking within the maze. Lizards with a patch on their right eye, i.e. using their left eye to monitor the environment, moved faster than lizards with a patch on their left eye when turning both leftward and rightward in a T-cross. Hence, right eye-patched lizards were faster than left eye-patched lizards also in turning right, although their right eye was covered. Thus, lizards that could use the left eye/right hemisphere to attend spatial cues appeared to have more control and to be more prompt in exploring the maze. In addition, female lizards with their left eye covered stopped very frequently when they reached crosses, showing a high level of indecision. Results confirm that P. muralis lizards using their left eye only in exploring a new environment react faster and more efficiently than those using the right eye only in exploration. Hence lateralisation of spatial stimuli mediated by the left eye/right hemisphere could provide an advantage to this species. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  7. Contrast-balanced binocular treatment in children with deprivation amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamm, Lisa M; Chen, Zidong; Li, Jinrong; Dai, Shuan; Black, Joanna; Yuan, Junpeng; Yu, Minbin; Thompson, Benjamin

    2017-11-28

    Children with deprivation amblyopia due to childhood cataract have been excluded from much of the emerging research into amblyopia treatment. An investigation was conducted to determine whether contrast-balanced binocular treatment - a strategy currently being explored for children with anisometropic and strabismic amblyopia - may be effective in children with deprivation amblyopia. An unmasked, case-series design intended to assess proof of principle was employed. Eighteen children with deprivation amblyopia due to childhood cataracts (early bilateral n = 7, early unilateral n = 7, developmental n = 4), as well as 10 children with anisometropic (n = 8) or mixed anisometropic and strabismic amblyopia (n = 2) were prescribed one hour a day of treatment over a six-week period. Supervised treatment was available. Visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, global motion perception and interocular suppression were measured pre- and post-treatment. Visual acuity improvements occurred in the anisometropic/strabismic group (0.15 ± 0.05 logMAR, p = 0.014), but contrast sensitivity did not change. As a group, children with deprivation amblyopia had a smaller but statistically significant improvement in weaker eye visual acuity (0.09 ± 0.03 logMAR, p = 0.004), as well a significant improvement in weaker eye contrast sensitivity (p = 0.004). Subgroup analysis suggested that the children with early bilateral deprivation had the largest improvements, while children with early unilateral cataract did not improve. Interestingly, binocular contrast sensitivity also improved in children with early bilateral deprivation. Global motion perception improved for both subgroups with early visual deprivation, as well as children with anisometropic or mixed anisometropic/strabismic amblyopia. Interocular suppression improved for all subgroups except children with early unilateral deprivation. These data suggest that supervised contrast-balanced binocular

  8. Effect of Putting Grip on Eye and Head Movements During the Golf Putting Stroke

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    George K. Hung

    2003-01-01

    Full Text Available The objective of this article is to determine the effect of three different putting grips (conventional, cross-hand, and one-handed on variations in eye and head movements during the putting stroke. Seven volunteer novice players, ranging in age from 21 to 22 years, participated in the study. During each experimental session, the subject stood on a specially designed platform covered with artificial turf and putted golf balls towards a standard golf hole. The three different types of grips were tested at two distances: 3 and 9 ft. For each condition, 20 putts were attempted. For each putt, data were recorded over a 3-s interval at a sampling rate of 100 Hz. Eye movements were recorded using a helmet-mounted eye movement monitor. Head rotation about an imaginary axis through the top of the head and its center-of-rotation was measured by means of a potentiometer mounted on a fixed frame and coupled to the helmet. Putter-head motion was measured using a linear array of infrared phototransistors embedded in the platform. The standard deviation (STD, relative to the initial level was calculated for eye and head movements over the duration of the putt (i.e., from the beginning of the backstroke, through the forward stroke, to impact. The averaged STD for the attempted putts was calculated for each subject. Then, the averaged STDs and other data for the seven subjects were statistically compared across the three grip conditions. The STD of eye movements were greater (p < 0.1 for conventional than cross-hand (9 ft and one-handed (3 and 9 ft grips. Also, the STD of head movements were greater (p < 0.1; 3 ft for conventional than cross-hand and one-handed grips. Vestibulo-ocular responses associated with head rotations could be observed in many 9 ft and some 3 ft putts. The duration of the putt was significantly longer (p < 0.05; 3 and 9 ft for the one-handed than conventional and cross-hand grips. Finally, performance, or percentage putts made, was

  9. Through the Eyes of the Beholder: Simulated Eye-movement Experience ("SEE") Modulates Valence Bias in Response to Emotional Ambiguity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neta, Maital; Dodd, Michael D

    2018-02-01

    Although some facial expressions provide clear information about people's emotions and intentions (happy, angry), others (surprise) are ambiguous because they can signal both positive (e.g., surprise party) and negative outcomes (e.g., witnessing an accident). Without a clarifying context, surprise is interpreted as positive by some and negative by others, and this valence bias is stable across time. When compared to fearful expressions, which are consistently rated as negative, surprise and fear share similar morphological features (e.g., widened eyes) primarily in the upper part of the face. Recently, we demonstrated that the valence bias was associated with a specific pattern of eye movements (positive bias associated with faster fixation to the lower part of the face). In this follow-up, we identified two participants from our previous study who had the most positive and most negative valence bias. We used their eye movements to create a moving window such that new participants viewed faces through the eyes of one our previous participants (subjects saw only the areas of the face that were directly fixated by the original participants in the exact order they were fixated; i.e., Simulated Eye-movement Experience). The input provided by these windows modulated the valence ratings of surprise, but not fear faces. These findings suggest there are meaningful individual differences in how people process faces, and that these differences impact our emotional perceptions. Furthermore, this study is unique in its approach to examining individual differences in emotion by creating a new methodology adapted from those used primarily in the vision/attention domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  10. Stereotactic radiotherapy for choroidal melanoma: analysis of eye movement during treatment

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Souza, Felipe Marques Lucas de; Gonçalves, Odair Dias; Cardoso, Simone Coutinho, E-mail: felipemlucas@poli.ufrj.br [Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), RJ (Brazil); Batista, Delano V.S. [Instituto de Radioproteção e Dosimetria (IRD/CNEN-RJ), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)

    2017-07-01

    This study aims to analyze the eye’s movement during radiotherapy treatment for choroidal melanoma, as well as the methodology used in the repositioning of the patient between treatments sessions. For this purpose, the procedures used by the hospital staff were analyzed on site and videos were recorded during the treatments. The methodology for the fixation of the eye is correct in its objective. However, the repositioning needs improvements in its reproducibility. It is recommended the study to fix the eye by the healthy eye and the feasibility study for the development of a software that assists in patient repositioning. (author)

  11. Stereotactic radiotherapy for choroidal melanoma: analysis of eye movement during treatment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Souza, Felipe Marques Lucas de; Gonçalves, Odair Dias; Cardoso, Simone Coutinho; Batista, Delano V.S.

    2017-01-01

    This study aims to analyze the eye’s movement during radiotherapy treatment for choroidal melanoma, as well as the methodology used in the repositioning of the patient between treatments sessions. For this purpose, the procedures used by the hospital staff were analyzed on site and videos were recorded during the treatments. The methodology for the fixation of the eye is correct in its objective. However, the repositioning needs improvements in its reproducibility. It is recommended the study to fix the eye by the healthy eye and the feasibility study for the development of a software that assists in patient repositioning. (author)

  12. Stereotactic radiotherapy for choroidal melanoma: analysis of eye movement during treatment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Souza, F. M. L.; Gonçalves, O. D.; Batista, D. V. S.; Cardoso, S. C.

    2018-03-01

    This study aims to analyse the eye’s movement during radiotherapy treatment for choroidal melanoma, as well as the methodology used in the repositioning of the patient between treatments sessions. For this purpose, the procedures used by the hospital staff were analysed on site and videos were recorded during the treatments. The methodology for the fixation of the eye is correct in its objective. However, the repositioning needs improvements in its reproducibility. It is recommended the study to fix the eye by the healthy eye and the feasibility study for the development of a software that assists in patient repositioning.

  13. Eye Movements Behavior While Driving a Car: A Review

    Science.gov (United States)

    1978-10-01

    should be filtered if only the relevant information input is to be inveatigated. -13- The analysis of eye movements bahavior should be consi- dered... volunt rvtlv switch hi , attent on From one eve to the other (e.q. LACK, 19"’). The accomodation of the eve at a greater distance in car Jriving

  14. EyeMusic: Making Music with the Eyes

    OpenAIRE

    Hornof, Anthony J.; Sato, Linda

    2004-01-01

    Though musical performers routinely use eye movements to communicate with each other during musical performances, very few performers or composers have used eye tracking devices to direct musical compositions and performances. EyeMusic is a system that uses eye movements as an input to electronic music compositions. The eye movements can directly control the music, or the music can respond to the eyes moving around a visual scene. EyeMusic is implemented so that any composer using established...

  15. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing for Adolescent Depression

    OpenAIRE

    Bae, Hwallip; Kim, Daeho; Park, Yong Chon

    2008-01-01

    While cognitive behavior therapy is considered to be the first-line therapy for adolescent depression, there are limited data on whether other psychotherapeutic techniques are also effective in treating adolescents with depression. This report suggests the potential application of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) for treatment of depressive disorder related, not to trauma, but to stressful life events. At present, EMDR has only been empirically validated for only trauma-re...

  16. Tracking Without Perceiving: A Dissociation Between Eye Movements and Motion Perception

    OpenAIRE

    Spering, Miriam; Pomplun, Marc; Carrasco, Marisa

    2010-01-01

    Can people react to objects in their visual field that they do not consciously perceive? We investigated how visual perception and motor action respond to moving objects whose visibility is reduced, and we found a dissociation between motion processing for perception and for action. We compared motion perception and eye movements evoked by two orthogonally drifting gratings, each presented separately to a different eye. The strength of each monocular grating was manipulated by inducing adapta...

  17. An improved algorithm for automatic detection of saccades in eye movement data and for calculating saccade parameters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Behrens, F; Mackeben, M; Schröder-Preikschat, W

    2010-08-01

    This analysis of time series of eye movements is a saccade-detection algorithm that is based on an earlier algorithm. It achieves substantial improvements by using an adaptive-threshold model instead of fixed thresholds and using the eye-movement acceleration signal. This has four advantages: (1) Adaptive thresholds are calculated automatically from the preceding acceleration data for detecting the beginning of a saccade, and thresholds are modified during the saccade. (2) The monotonicity of the position signal during the saccade, together with the acceleration with respect to the thresholds, is used to reliably determine the end of the saccade. (3) This allows differentiation between saccades following the main-sequence and non-main-sequence saccades. (4) Artifacts of various kinds can be detected and eliminated. The algorithm is demonstrated by applying it to human eye movement data (obtained by EOG) recorded during driving a car. A second demonstration of the algorithm detects microsleep episodes in eye movement data.

  18. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and Slow Wave Sleep: A Putative Mechanism of Action.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pagani, Marco; Amann, Benedikt L; Landin-Romero, Ramon; Carletto, Sara

    2017-01-01

    Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is considered highly efficacious for the treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and has proved to be a valid treatment approach with a wide range of applications. However, EMDR's mechanisms of action is not yet fully understood. This is an active area of clinical and neurophysiological research, and several different hypotheses have been proposed. This paper discusses a conjecture which focuses on the similarity between the delta waves recorded by electroencephalography during Slow Wave Sleep (SWS) and those registered upon typical EMDR bilateral stimulation (eye movements or alternate tapping) during recurrent distressing memories of an emotionally traumatic event. SWS appears to have a key role in memory consolidation and in the reorganization of distant functional networks, as well as Eye Movements seem to reduce traumatic episodic memory and favor the reconsolidation of new associated information. The SWS hypothesis may put forward an explanation of how EMDR works, and is discussed also in light of other theories and neurobiological findings.

  19. Disrupted rapid eye movement sleep predicts poor declarative memory performance in post-traumatic stress disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lipinska, Malgorzata; Timol, Ridwana; Kaminer, Debra; Thomas, Kevin G F

    2014-06-01

    Successful memory consolidation during sleep depends on healthy slow-wave and rapid eye movement sleep, and on successful transition across sleep stages. In post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep is disrupted and memory is impaired, but relations between these two variables in the psychiatric condition remain unexplored. We examined whether disrupted sleep, and consequent disrupted memory consolidation, is a mechanism underlying declarative memory deficits in post-traumatic stress disorder. We recruited three matched groups of participants: post-traumatic stress disorder (n = 16); trauma-exposed non-post-traumatic stress disorder (n = 15); and healthy control (n = 14). They completed memory tasks before and after 8 h of sleep. We measured sleep variables using sleep-adapted electroencephalography. Post-traumatic stress disorder-diagnosed participants experienced significantly less sleep efficiency and rapid eye movement sleep percentage, and experienced more awakenings and wake percentage in the second half of the night than did participants in the other two groups. After sleep, post-traumatic stress disorder-diagnosed participants retained significantly less information on a declarative memory task than controls. Rapid eye movement percentage, wake percentage and sleep efficiency correlated with retention of information over the night. Furthermore, lower rapid eye movement percentage predicted poorer retention in post-traumatic stress disorder-diagnosed individuals. Our results suggest that declarative memory consolidation is disrupted during sleep in post-traumatic stress disorder. These data are consistent with theories suggesting that sleep benefits memory consolidation via predictable neurobiological mechanisms, and that rapid eye movement disruption is more than a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. © 2014 European Sleep Research Society.

  20. Hybrid EEG—Eye Tracker: Automatic Identification and Removal of Eye Movement and Blink Artifacts from Electroencephalographic Signal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Malik M. Naeem Mannan

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Contamination of eye movement and blink artifacts in Electroencephalogram (EEG recording makes the analysis of EEG data more difficult and could result in mislead findings. Efficient removal of these artifacts from EEG data is an essential step in improving classification accuracy to develop the brain-computer interface (BCI. In this paper, we proposed an automatic framework based on independent component analysis (ICA and system identification to identify and remove ocular artifacts from EEG data by using hybrid EEG and eye tracker system. The performance of the proposed algorithm is illustrated using experimental and standard EEG datasets. The proposed algorithm not only removes the ocular artifacts from artifactual zone but also preserves the neuronal activity related EEG signals in non-artifactual zone. The comparison with the two state-of-the-art techniques namely ADJUST based ICA and REGICA reveals the significant improved performance of the proposed algorithm for removing eye movement and blink artifacts from EEG data. Additionally, results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can achieve lower relative error and higher mutual information values between corrected EEG and artifact-free EEG data.

  1. Eye Movement Analysis of Information Processing under Different Testing Conditions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dillon, Ronna F.

    1985-01-01

    Undergraduates were given complex figural analogies items, and eye movements were observed under three types of feedback: (1) elaborate feedback; (2) subjects verbalized their thinking and application of rules; and (3) no feedback. Both feedback conditions enhanced the rule-governed information processing during inductive reasoning. (Author/GDC)

  2. Efficient feature for classification of eye movements using electrooculography signals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Phukpattaranont Pornchai

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Electrooculography (EOG signal is widely and successfully used to detect activities of human eye. The advantages of the EOG-based interface over other conventional interfaces have been presented in the last two decades; however, due to a lot of information in EOG signals, the extraction of useful features should be done before the classification task. In this study, an efficient feature extracted from two directional EOG signals: vertical and horizontal signals has been presented and evaluated. There are the maximum peak and valley amplitude values, the maximum peak and valley position values, and slope, which are derived from both vertical and horizontal signals. In the experiments, EOG signals obtained from five healthy subjects with ten directional eye movements were employed: up, down, right, left, up-right, up-left, down-right down-left clockwise and counterclockwise. The mean feature values and their standard deviations have been reported. The difference between the mean values of the proposed feature from different eye movements can be clearly seen. Using the scatter plot, the differences in features can be also clearly observed. Results show that classification accuracy can approach 100% with a simple distinction feature rule. The proposed features can be useful for various advanced human-computer interface applications in future researches.

  3. Adult Age Differences in Eye Movements During Reading: The Evidence From Chinese.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jingxin; Li, Lin; Li, Sha; Xie, Fang; Chang, Min; Paterson, Kevin B; White, Sarah J; McGowan, Victoria A

    2018-04-16

    Substantial evidence indicates that older readers of alphabetic languages (e.g., English and German) compensate for age-related reading difficulty by employing a more risky reading strategy in which words are skipped more frequently. The effects of healthy aging on reading behavior for nonalphabetic languages, like Chinese, are largely unknown, although this would reveal the extent to which age-related changes in reading strategy are universal. Accordingly, the present research used measures of eye movements to investigate adult age differences in Chinese reading. The eye movements of young (18-30 years) and older (60+ years) Chinese readers were recorded. The older adults exhibited typical patterns of age-related reading difficulty. But rather than employing a more risky reading strategy compared with the younger readers, the older adults read more carefully by skipping words infrequently, making shorter forward eye movements, and fixating closer to the beginnings of two-character target words in sentences. In contrast with the findings for alphabetic languages, older Chinese readers appear to compensate for age-related reading difficulty by employing a more careful reading strategy. Age-related changes in reading strategy therefore appear to be language specific, rather than universal, and may reflect the specific visual and linguistic requirements of the writing system.

  4. Gesturing during mental problem solving reduces eye movements, especially for individuals with lower visual working memory capacity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pouw, Wim T J L; Mavilidi, Myrto-Foteini; van Gog, Tamara; Paas, Fred

    2016-08-01

    Non-communicative hand gestures have been found to benefit problem-solving performance. These gestures seem to compensate for limited internal cognitive capacities, such as visual working memory capacity. Yet, it is not clear how gestures might perform this cognitive function. One hypothesis is that gesturing is a means to spatially index mental simulations, thereby reducing the need for visually projecting the mental simulation onto the visual presentation of the task. If that hypothesis is correct, less eye movements should be made when participants gesture during problem solving than when they do not gesture. We therefore used mobile eye tracking to investigate the effect of co-thought gesturing and visual working memory capacity on eye movements during mental solving of the Tower of Hanoi problem. Results revealed that gesturing indeed reduced the number of eye movements (lower saccade counts), especially for participants with a relatively lower visual working memory capacity. Subsequent problem-solving performance was not affected by having (not) gestured during the mental solving phase. The current findings suggest that our understanding of gestures in problem solving could be improved by taking into account eye movements during gesturing.

  5. Touch interacts with vision during binocular rivalry with a tight orientation tuning.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Claudia Lunghi

    Full Text Available Multisensory integration is a common feature of the mammalian brain that allows it to deal more efficiently with the ambiguity of sensory input by combining complementary signals from several sensory sources. Growing evidence suggests that multisensory interactions can occur as early as primary sensory cortices. Here we present incompatible visual signals (orthogonal gratings to each eye to create visual competition between monocular inputs in primary visual cortex where binocular combination would normally take place. The incompatibility prevents binocular fusion and triggers an ambiguous perceptual response in which the two images are perceived one at a time in an irregular alternation. One key function of multisensory integration is to minimize perceptual ambiguity by exploiting cross-sensory congruence. We show that a haptic signal matching one of the visual alternatives helps disambiguate visual perception during binocular rivalry by both prolonging the dominance period of the congruent visual stimulus and by shortening its suppression period. Importantly, this interaction is strictly tuned for orientation, with a mismatch as small as 7.5° between visual and haptic orientations sufficient to annul the interaction. These results indicate important conclusions: first, that vision and touch interact at early levels of visual processing where interocular conflicts are first detected and orientation tunings are narrow, and second, that haptic input can influence visual signals outside of visual awareness, bringing a stimulus made invisible by binocular rivalry suppression back to awareness sooner than would occur without congruent haptic input.

  6. Origin, development, and evolution of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carolina Marín

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR has led to a great number of studies since its appearance in 1989. The aim of this article is to describe EMDR development and evolution to the present day. With this purpose a search was carried out on MEDLINE and PsycINFO with the entry "eye movement desensitization". After revising the resulting 797 articles, those that because of their relevance explained best the development and evolution of the technique were chosen and shaped into a lifeline graphically representing the history of EMDR. Despite the fact that during the first years the focus of research was on the validation of the technique for post-traumatic disorder (PTSD, it was soon applied to other areas. Only 14% of the articles found account for controlled studies. Up to date, in spite of the effectiveness of EMDR for the treatment of PTSD that has been proven, many different explanatory hypotheses are still up for discussion.

  7. Binocular Rivalry in a Competitive Neural Network with Synaptic Depression

    KAUST Repository

    Kilpatrick, Zachary P.

    2010-01-01

    We study binocular rivalry in a competitive neural network with synaptic depression. In particular, we consider two coupled hypercolums within primary visual cortex (V1), representing orientation selective cells responding to either left or right eye inputs. Coupling between hypercolumns is dominated by inhibition, especially for neurons with dissimilar orientation preferences. Within hypercolumns, recurrent connectivity is excitatory for similar orientations and inhibitory for different orientations. All synaptic connections are modifiable by local synaptic depression. When the hypercolumns are driven by orthogonal oriented stimuli, it is possible to induce oscillations that are representative of binocular rivalry. We first analyze the occurrence of oscillations in a space-clamped version of the model using a fast-slow analys is, taking advantage of the fact that depression evolves much slower than population activity. We th en analyze the onset of oscillations in the full spatially extended system by carrying out a piecewise smooth stability analysis of single (winner-take-all) and double (fusion) bumps within the network. Although our stability analysis takes into account only instabilities associated with real eigenvalues, it identifies points of instability that are consistent with what is found numerically. In particular, we show that, in regions of parameter space where double bumps are unstable and no single bumps exist, binocular rivalry can arise as a slow alternation between either population supporting a bump. © 2010 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

  8. Effects of contrast on smooth pursuit eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spering, Miriam; Kerzel, Dirk; Braun, Doris I; Hawken, Michael J; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

    2005-05-20

    It is well known that moving stimuli can appear to move more slowly when contrast is reduced (P. Thompson, 1982). Here we address the question whether changes in stimulus contrast also affect smooth pursuit eye movements. Subjects were asked to smoothly track a moving Gabor patch. Targets varied in velocity (1, 8, and 15 deg/s), spatial frequency (0.1, 1, 4, and 8 c/deg), and contrast, ranging from just below individual thresholds to maximum contrast. Results show that smooth pursuit eye velocity gain rose significantly with increasing contrast. Below a contrast level of two to three times threshold, pursuit gain, acceleration, latency, and positional accuracy were severely impaired. Therefore, the smooth pursuit motor response shows the same kind of slowing at low contrast that was demonstrated in previous studies on perception.

  9. Human Response to Ductless Personalised Ventilation: Impact of Air Movement, Temperature and Cleanness on Eye Symptoms

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dalewski, Mariusz; Fillon, Maelys; Bivolarova, Maria

    2013-01-01

    environment facially applied individually controlled air movement of room air, with or without local filtering, did not have significant impact on eye blink frequency and tear film quality. The local air movement and air cleaning resulted in increased eye blinking frequency and improvement of tear film......The performance of ductless personalized ventilation (DPV) in conjunction with displacement ventilation (DV) was studied in relation to peoples’ health, comfort and performance. This paper presents results on the impact of room air temperature, using of DPV and local air filtration on eye blink...

  10. Eye and hand movements during reconstruction of spatial memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burke, Melanie R; Allen, Richard J; Gonzalez, Claudia

    2012-01-01

    Recent behavioural and biological evidence indicates common mechanisms serving working memory and attention (e.g., Awh et al, 2006 Neuroscience 139 201-208). This study explored the role of spatial attention and visual search in an adapted Corsi spatial memory task. Eye movements and touch responses were recorded from participants who recalled locations (signalled by colour or shape change) from an array presented either simultaneously or sequentially. The time delay between target presentation and recall (0, 5, or 10 s) and the number of locations to be remembered (2-5) were also manipulated. Analysis of the response phase revealed subjects were less accurate (touch data) and fixated longer (eye data) when responding to sequentially presented targets suggesting higher cognitive effort. Fixation duration on target at recall was also influenced by whether spatial location was initially signalled by colour or shape change. Finally, we found that the sequence tasks encouraged longer fixations on the signalled targets than simultaneous viewing during encoding, but no difference was observed during recall. We conclude that the attentional manipulations (colour/shape) mainly affected the eye movement parameters, whereas the memory manipulation (sequential versus simultaneous, number of items) mainly affected the performance of the hand during recall, and thus the latter is more important for ascertaining if an item is remembered or forgotten. In summary, the nature of the stimuli that is used and how it is presented play key roles in determining subject performance and behaviour during spatial memory tasks.

  11. Quantitative linking hypotheses for infant eye movements.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniel Yurovsky

    Full Text Available The study of cognitive development hinges, largely, on the analysis of infant looking. But analyses of eye gaze data require the adoption of linking hypotheses: assumptions about the relationship between observed eye movements and underlying cognitive processes. We develop a general framework for constructing, testing, and comparing these hypotheses, and thus for producing new insights into early cognitive development. We first introduce the general framework--applicable to any infant gaze experiment--and then demonstrate its utility by analyzing data from a set of experiments investigating the role of attentional cues in infant learning. The new analysis uncovers significantly more structure in these data, finding evidence of learning that was not found in standard analyses and showing an unexpected relationship between cue use and learning rate. Finally, we discuss general implications for the construction and testing of quantitative linking hypotheses. MATLAB code for sample linking hypotheses can be found on the first author's website.

  12. Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder and rapid eye movement sleep without atonia in narcolepsy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dauvilliers, Yves; Jennum, Poul; Plazzi, Giuseppe

    2013-01-01

    Narcolepsy is a rare disabling hypersomnia disorder that may include cataplexy, sleep paralysis, hypnagogic hallucinations, and sleep-onset rapid eye movement (REM) periods, but also disrupted nighttime sleep by nocturnal awakenings, and REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD). RBD is characterized...... by dream-enacting behavior and impaired motor inhibition during REM sleep (REM sleep without atonia, RSWA). RBD is commonly associated with neurodegenerative disorders including Parkinsonisms, but is also reported in narcolepsy in up to 60% of patients. RBD in patients with narcolepsy is, however...... with narcolepsy often present dissociated sleep features including RSWA, increased density of phasic chin EMG and frequent shift from REM to NREM sleep, with or without associated clinical RBD. Most patients with narcolepsy with cataplexy lack the hypocretin neurons in the lateral hypothalamus. Tonic and phasic...

  13. The analysis of the influence of fractal structure of stimuli on fractal dynamics in fixational eye movements and EEG signal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Namazi, Hamidreza; Kulish, Vladimir V.; Akrami, Amin

    2016-05-01

    One of the major challenges in vision research is to analyze the effect of visual stimuli on human vision. However, no relationship has been yet discovered between the structure of the visual stimulus, and the structure of fixational eye movements. This study reveals the plasticity of human fixational eye movements in relation to the ‘complex’ visual stimulus. We demonstrated that the fractal temporal structure of visual dynamics shifts towards the fractal dynamics of the visual stimulus (image). The results showed that images with higher complexity (higher fractality) cause fixational eye movements with lower fractality. Considering the brain, as the main part of nervous system that is engaged in eye movements, we analyzed the governed Electroencephalogram (EEG) signal during fixation. We have found out that there is a coupling between fractality of image, EEG and fixational eye movements. The capability observed in this research can be further investigated and applied for treatment of different vision disorders.

  14. The King-Devick (K-D) test of rapid eye movements: a bedside correlate of disability and quality of life in MS.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moster, Stephen; Wilson, James A; Galetta, Steven L; Balcer, Laura J

    2014-08-15

    We investigated the King-Devick (K-D) test of rapid number naming as a visual performance measure in a cohort of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). In this cross-sectional study, 81 patients with MS and 20 disease-free controls from an ongoing study of visual outcomes underwent K-D testing. A test of rapid number naming, K-D requires saccadic eye movements as well as intact vision, attention and concentration. To perform the K-D test, participants are asked to read numbers aloud as quickly as possible from three test cards; the sum of the three test card times in seconds constitutes the summary score. High-contrast visual acuity (VA), low-contrast letter acuity (1.25% and 2.5% levels), retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness by optical coherence tomography (OCT), MS Functional Composite (MSFC) and vision-specific quality of life (QOL) measures (25-Item NEI Visual Functioning Questionnaire [NEI-VFQ-25] and 10-Item Neuro-Ophthalmic Supplement) were also assessed. K-D time scores in the MS cohort (total time to read the three test cards) were significantly higher (worse) compared to those for disease-free controls (P=0.003, linear regression, accounting for age). Within the MS cohort, higher K-D scores were associated with worse scores for the NEI-VFQ-25 composite (Paccounting for age and within-patient, inter-eye correlations). Patients with a history of optic neuritis (ON) had increased (worse) K-D scores. Patients who classified their work disability status as disabled (receiving disability pension) did worse on K-D testing compared to those working full-time (P=0.001, accounting for age). The K-D test, a work disability as well as structural changes as measured by OCT imaging. History of ON and abnormal binocular acuities were associated with worse K-D scores, suggesting that abnormalities detected by K-D may go along with afferent dysfunction in MS patients. A brief test that requires saccadic eye movements, K-D should be considered for future MS trials as

  15. Dynamic study of ocular movement with MR imaging in orbital blow-out fracture

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aibara, Ryuichi; Kawakita, Seiji; Matsumoto, Yasushi; Sadamoto, Masanori; Yumoto, Eiji.

    1996-01-01

    Operative indications for orbital blow-out fracture (OBF) remain controversial. One of the major sources of this controversy is that an accurate diagnosis of ocular movement disturbances can not be made by conventional procedures such as the Hess screen test, traction test, or CT scan. Disturbances in ocular movement resulting from OBF can occur not only with entrapment of the extraocular muscle but also with intraorbital bleeding, edema, and/or a variety of other unclear factors. To obtain a more accurate diagnosis and to assist in the choice of treatment, ocular movement was examined using orbital 'cine mode' MR imaging. MR images were obtained in multiple phases of vertical and horizontal ocular movements by using the 'fast SE' capabilities of the SIERRA, GE-YMS MR scanner (1.5 Tesla, superconductive). The fixed eye method was applied to two normal volunteers and to patients with 'pure' OBF. Five marks for binocular fixation were affixed to the inner wall of the gantry: one at the primary position and four at secondary positions. While keeping the subject's eye focused on each of these marks for about 30 sec, MR images (head coil) of the axial view and bilateral oblique sagittal view along the optic nerve were carried out. In the normal volunteers, a good demonstration of smooth movement of the eye ball, extraocular muscles, and the optic nerve could be obtained. In the OBF patients, it was clearly observed that the disturbance in ocular movement was caused by poor extension of the external ocular muscles, specifically the inferior rectus muscle in the orbital floor fracture, and the internal rectus muscle in the medial wall fracture. These observations suggested that dynamic orbital imaging with MR would be extremely valuable in the assessment of disturbances of ocular movement in OBF. (author)

  16. Eye movements of patients with tunnel vision while walking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vargas-Martín, Fernando; Peli, Eli

    2006-12-01

    To determine how severe peripheral field loss (PFL) affects the dispersion of eye movements relative to the head in patients walking in real environments. This information should help to define the visual field and clearance requirements for head-mounted mobility visual aids. Eye positions relative to the head were recorded in five patients with retinitis pigmentosa who had less than 15 degrees of visual field and in three normally sighted people, each walking in varied environments for more than 30 minutes. The eye-position recorder was made portable by modifying a head-mounted system (ISCAN, Burlington, MA). Custom data processing was implemented, to reject unreliable data. Sample standard deviations of eye position (dispersion) were compared across subject groups and environments. The patients with PFL exhibited narrower horizontal eye-position dispersions than did the normally sighted subjects (9.4 degrees vs. 14.2 degrees , P vision information. Their horizontal scanning was actually reduced, possibly because of lack of peripheral stimulation. The results suggest that a field of view as wide as 40 degrees may be needed for closed (immersive) head-mounted mobility aids, whereas a much narrower display, perhaps as narrow as 20 degrees , may be sufficient with an open design.

  17. Eye Movement Correlates of Expertise in Visual Arts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Francuz, Piotr; Zaniewski, Iwo; Augustynowicz, Paweł; Kopiś, Natalia; Jankowski, Tomasz

    2018-01-01

    The aim of this study was to search for oculomotor correlates of expertise in visual arts, in particular with regard to paintings. Achieving this goal was possible by gathering data on eye movements of two groups of participants: experts and non-experts in visual arts who viewed and appreciated the aesthetics of paintings. In particular, we were interested in whether visual arts experts more accurately recognize a balanced composition in one of the two paintings being compared simultaneously, and whether people who correctly recognize harmonious paintings are characterized by a different visual scanning strategy than those who do not recognize them. For the purposes of this study, 25 paintings with an almost ideal balanced composition have been chosen. Some of these paintings are masterpieces of the world cultural heritage, and some of them are unknown. Using Photoshop, the artist developed three additional versions of each of these paintings, differing from the original in the degree of destruction of its harmonious composition: slight, moderate, or significant. The task of the participants was to look at all versions of the same painting in pairs (including the original) and decide which of them looked more pleasing. The study involved 23 experts in art, students of art history, art education or the Academy of Fine Arts, and 19 non-experts, students in the social sciences and the humanities. The experimental manipulation of comparing pairs of paintings, whose composition is at different levels of harmony, has proved to be an effective tool for differentiating people because of their ability to distinguish paintings with balanced composition from an unbalanced one. It turned out that this ability only partly coincides with expertise understood as the effect of education in the field of visual arts. We also found that the eye movements of people who more accurately appreciated paintings with balanced composition differ from those who more liked their altered

  18. Eye Movement Correlates of Expertise in Visual Arts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Piotr Francuz

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this study was to search for oculomotor correlates of expertise in visual arts, in particular with regard to paintings. Achieving this goal was possible by gathering data on eye movements of two groups of participants: experts and non-experts in visual arts who viewed and appreciated the aesthetics of paintings. In particular, we were interested in whether visual arts experts more accurately recognize a balanced composition in one of the two paintings being compared simultaneously, and whether people who correctly recognize harmonious paintings are characterized by a different visual scanning strategy than those who do not recognize them. For the purposes of this study, 25 paintings with an almost ideal balanced composition have been chosen. Some of these paintings are masterpieces of the world cultural heritage, and some of them are unknown. Using Photoshop, the artist developed three additional versions of each of these paintings, differing from the original in the degree of destruction of its harmonious composition: slight, moderate, or significant. The task of the participants was to look at all versions of the same painting in pairs (including the original and decide which of them looked more pleasing. The study involved 23 experts in art, students of art history, art education or the Academy of Fine Arts, and 19 non-experts, students in the social sciences and the humanities. The experimental manipulation of comparing pairs of paintings, whose composition is at different levels of harmony, has proved to be an effective tool for differentiating people because of their ability to distinguish paintings with balanced composition from an unbalanced one. It turned out that this ability only partly coincides with expertise understood as the effect of education in the field of visual arts. We also found that the eye movements of people who more accurately appreciated paintings with balanced composition differ from those who more liked

  19. Treatment of dysfunctionally stored experiences with the method Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing – EMDR

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Robert Cvetek

    2002-09-01

    Full Text Available In this paper a new therapeutic method called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is described. The method was formed mainly for treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder, but there are also some reports about success with other mental disorders. The theoretical base of EMDR and especially the accelerated information processing model, the concept of memory networks and the explanations of effects of eye movements are presented. The process of EMDR is also described.

  20. Adaptation of the vestibulo-ocular reflex for forward-eyed foveate vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    Migliaccio, Americo A; Minor, Lloyd B; Santina, Charles C Della

    2010-01-01

    To maintain visual fixation on a distant target during head rotation, the angular vestibulo-ocular reflex (aVOR) should rotate the eyes at the same speed as the head and in exactly the opposite direction. However, in primates for which the 3-dimensional (3D) aVOR has been extensively characterised (humans and squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus)), the aVOR response to roll head rotation about the naso-occipital axis is lower than that elicited by yaw and pitch, causing errors in aVOR magnitude and direction that vary with the axis of head rotation. In other words, primates keep the central part of the retinal image on the fovea (where photoreceptor density and visual acuity are greatest) but fail to keep that image from twisting about the eyes' resting optic axes. We tested the hypothesis that aVOR direction dependence is an adaptation related to primates' frontal-eyed, foveate status through comparison with the aVOR of a lateral-eyed, afoveate mammal (Chinchilla lanigera). As chinchillas' eyes are afoveate and never align with each other, we predicted that the chinchilla aVOR would be relatively low in gain and isotropic (equal in gain for every head rotation axis). In 11 normal chinchillas, we recorded binocular 3D eye movements in darkness during static tilts, 20–100 deg s−1 whole-body sinusoidal rotations (0.5–15 Hz), and 3000 deg s−2 acceleration steps. Although the chinchilla 3D aVOR gain changed with both frequency and peak velocity over the range we examined, we consistently found that it was more nearly isotropic than the primate aVOR. Our results suggest that primates' anisotropic aVOR represents an adaptation to their forward-eyed, foveate status. In primates, yaw and pitch aVOR must be compensatory to stabilise images on both foveae, whereas roll aVOR can be under-compensatory because the brain tolerates torsion of binocular images that remain on the foveae. In contrast, the lateral-eyed chinchilla faces different adaptive demands and thus

  1. Efficacy of vision therapy in children with learning disability and associated binocular vision anomalies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hussaindeen, Jameel Rizwana; Shah, Prerana; Ramani, Krishna Kumar; Ramanujan, Lalitha

    To report the frequency of binocular vision (BV) anomalies in children with specific learning disorders (SLD) and to assess the efficacy of vision therapy (VT) in children with a non-strabismic binocular vision anomaly (NSBVA). The study was carried out at a centre for learning disability (LD). Comprehensive eye examination and binocular vision assessment was carried out for 94 children (mean (SD) age: 15 (2.2) years) diagnosed with specific learning disorder. BV assessment was done for children with best corrected visual acuity of ≥6/9 - N6, cooperative for examination and free from any ocular pathology. For children with a diagnosis of NSBVA (n=46), 24 children were randomized to VT and no intervention was provided to the other 22 children who served as experimental controls. At the end of 10 sessions of vision therapy, BV assessment was performed for both the intervention and non-intervention groups. Binocular vision anomalies were found in 59 children (62.8%) among which 22% (n=13) had strabismic binocular vision anomalies (SBVA) and 78% (n=46) had a NSBVA. Accommodative infacility (AIF) was the commonest of the NSBVA and found in 67%, followed by convergence insufficiency (CI) in 25%. Post-vision therapy, the intervention group showed significant improvement in all the BV parameters (Wilcoxon signed rank test, p<0.05) except negative fusional vergence. Children with specific learning disorders have a high frequency of binocular vision disorders and vision therapy plays a significant role in improving the BV parameters. Children with SLD should be screened for BV anomalies as it could potentially be an added hindrance to the reading difficulty in this special population. Copyright © 2017 Spanish General Council of Optometry. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

  2. Rehearsal in serial memory for visual-spatial information: evidence from eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tremblay, Sébastien; Saint-Aubin, Jean; Jalbert, Annie

    2006-06-01

    It is well established that rote rehearsal plays a key role in serial memory for lists of verbal items. Although a great deal of research has informed us about the nature of verbal rehearsal, much less attention has been devoted to rehearsal in serial memory for visual-spatial information. By using the dot task--a visual-spatial analogue of the classical verbal serial recall task--with delayed recall, performance and eyetracking data were recorded in order to establish whether visual-spatial rehearsal could be evidenced by eye movement. The use of eye movement as a form of rehearsal is detectable (Experiment 1), and it seems to contribute to serial memory performance over and above rehearsal based on shifts of spatial attention (Experiments 1 and 2).

  3. Feature selection in classification of eye movements using electrooculography for activity recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mala, S; Latha, K

    2014-01-01

    Activity recognition is needed in different requisition, for example, reconnaissance system, patient monitoring, and human-computer interfaces. Feature selection plays an important role in activity recognition, data mining, and machine learning. In selecting subset of features, an efficient evolutionary algorithm Differential Evolution (DE), a very efficient optimizer, is used for finding informative features from eye movements using electrooculography (EOG). Many researchers use EOG signals in human-computer interactions with various computational intelligence methods to analyze eye movements. The proposed system involves analysis of EOG signals using clearness based features, minimum redundancy maximum relevance features, and Differential Evolution based features. This work concentrates more on the feature selection algorithm based on DE in order to improve the classification for faultless activity recognition.

  4. Cataphora processing in agrammatic aphasia: Eye movement evidence for integration deficits

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chien-Ju Hsu

    2014-04-01

    These findings indicate that the patients exhibited similar eye-movement patterns to that of the controls when processing definitional-gender nouns. However, unlike controls, they failed to use contextual gender information to revise gender stereotypes. These patterns support the LIDH.

  5. Intuitive Face Judgments Rely on Holistic Eye Movement Pattern.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mega, Laura F; Volz, Kirsten G

    2017-01-01

    Non-verbal signals such as facial expressions are of paramount importance for social encounters. Their perception predominantly occurs without conscious awareness and is effortlessly integrated into social interactions. In other words, face perception is intuitive. Contrary to classical intuition tasks, this work investigates intuitive processes in the realm of every-day type social judgments. Two differently instructed groups of participants judged the authenticity of emotional facial expressions, while their eye movements were recorded: an 'intuitive group,' instructed to rely on their "gut feeling" for the authenticity judgments, and a 'deliberative group,' instructed to make their judgments after careful analysis of the face. Pixel-wise statistical maps of the resulting eye movements revealed a differential viewing pattern, wherein the intuitive judgments relied on fewer, longer and more centrally located fixations. These markers have been associated with a global/holistic viewing strategy. The holistic pattern of intuitive face judgments is in line with evidence showing that intuition is related to processing the "gestalt" of an object, rather than focusing on details. Our work thereby provides further evidence that intuitive processes are characterized by holistic perception, in an understudied and real world domain of intuition research.

  6. Visual Data Mining: An Exploratory Approach to Analyzing Temporal Patterns of Eye Movements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Chen; Yurovsky, Daniel; Xu, Tian

    2012-01-01

    Infant eye movements are an important behavioral resource to understand early human development and learning. But the complexity and amount of gaze data recorded from state-of-the-art eye-tracking systems also pose a challenge: how does one make sense of such dense data? Toward this goal, this article describes an interactive approach based on…

  7. Three-Dimensional Eye Tracking in a Surgical Scenario.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bogdanova, Rositsa; Boulanger, Pierre; Zheng, Bin

    2015-10-01

    Eye tracking has been widely used in studying the eye behavior of surgeons in the past decade. Most eye-tracking data are reported in a 2-dimensional (2D) fashion, and data for describing surgeons' behaviors on stereoperception are often missed. With the introduction of stereoscopes in laparoscopic procedures, there is an increasing need for studying the depth perception of surgeons under 3D image-guided surgery. We developed a new algorithm for the computation of convergence points in stereovision by measuring surgeons' interpupillary distance, the distance to the view target, and the difference between gaze locations of the 2 eyes. To test the feasibility of our new algorithm, we recruited 10 individuals to watch stereograms using binocular disparity and asked them to develop stereoperception using a cross-eyed viewing technique. Participants' eye motions were recorded by the Tobii eye tracker while they performed the trials. Convergence points between normal and stereo-viewing conditions were computed using the developed algorithm. All 10 participants were able to develop stereovision after a short period of training. During stereovision, participants' eye convergence points were 14 ± 1 cm in front of their eyes, which was significantly closer than the convergence points under the normal viewing condition (77 ± 20 cm). By applying our method of calculating convergence points using eye tracking, we were able to elicit the eye movement patterns of human operators between the normal and stereovision conditions. Knowledge from this study can be applied to the design of surgical visual systems, with the goal of improving surgical performance and patient safety. © The Author(s) 2015.

  8. Test of the neurolinguistic programming hypothesis that eye-movements relate to processing imagery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wertheim, E H; Habib, C; Cumming, G

    1986-04-01

    Bandler and Grinder's hypothesis that eye-movements reflect sensory processing was examined. 28 volunteers first memorized and then recalled visual, auditory, and kinesthetic stimuli. Changes in eye-positions during recall were videotaped and categorized by two raters into positions hypothesized by Bandler and Grinder's model to represent visual, auditory, and kinesthetic recall. Planned contrast analyses suggested that visual stimulus items, when recalled, elicited significantly more upward eye-positions and stares than auditory and kinesthetic items. Auditory and kinesthetic items, however, did not elicit more changes in eye-position hypothesized by the model to represent auditory and kinesthetic recall, respectively.

  9. CERN's eagle-eyed movement hunters in action

    CERN Multimedia

    2007-01-01

    Vibrations, movements, strains - nothing escapes the eagle eyes of CERN's Mechanical Measurements Laboratory, which helps groups needing mechanical testing and delicate transport operations. Graphical representation of the natural mode shape of one of the end-caps of the ATLAS inner detector, determined through experimentation.After installation of sensors on one of the end-caps of the ATLAS inner detector, CERN's Mechanical Measurements team performs remote checks to ensure the sensors are working properly before transport. They are on the look-out for anything that moves, shakes or changes shape. The slightest movement, however minute, will attract their attention. The Mechanical Measurements team, which is part of the Installation Coordination Group (TS-IC), specialises in all kinds of vibration studies, for design projects as well as for the transport of fragile objects. The Mechanical Measurements Laboratory was created in 1973 and, after a lull at the end of the century, was given a new lease of life ...

  10. Contribution of eye position to movement perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pettorossi, V E; Panichi, R; Bambagioni, D; Grassi, S; Botti, F M

    2004-05-01

    To investigate the influence of gaze eccentricity on movement perception during asymmetric vestibular stimulation. Subjects (n = 10) were placed on a rotating platform and oscillated asymmetrically in the dark. Subjects were asked to reproduce with a pointer the location in space of a light spot that was turned off at the beginning of the oscillation. The target was presented in centric and eccentric (0 degrees, 20 degrees and 40 degrees) positions. In the centric position a large shift from the real position of the target was observed in the opposite direction to that of the faster vestibular stimulation. The shift increased when the target was placed eccentrically toward the slower vestibular stimulation side and decreased when it was placed in the opposite direction. The dependence of rotation perception on the target position suggests that the eye deviation, imposed by the eccentricity of the target, is able to influence the perception of body movement and may modulate the internal reference frame.

  11. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and Slow Wave Sleep: A Putative Mechanism of Action

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marco Pagani

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR is considered highly efficacious for the treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and has proved to be a valid treatment approach with a wide range of applications. However, EMDR’s mechanisms of action is not yet fully understood. This is an active area of clinical and neurophysiological research, and several different hypotheses have been proposed. This paper discusses a conjecture which focuses on the similarity between the delta waves recorded by electroencephalography during Slow Wave Sleep (SWS and those registered upon typical EMDR bilateral stimulation (eye movements or alternate tapping during recurrent distressing memories of an emotionally traumatic event. SWS appears to have a key role in memory consolidation and in the reorganization of distant functional networks, as well as Eye Movements seem to reduce traumatic episodic memory and favor the reconsolidation of new associated information. The SWS hypothesis may put forward an explanation of how EMDR works, and is discussed also in light of other theories and neurobiological findings.

  12. Development of Text Reading in Japanese: An Eye Movement Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jincho, Nobuyuki; Feng, Gary; Mazuka, Reiko

    2014-01-01

    This study examined age-group differences in eye movements among third-grade, fifth-grade, and adult Japanese readers. In Experiment 1, Japanese children, but not adults, showed a longer fixation time on logographic kanji words than on phonologically transparent hiragana words. Further, an age-group difference was found in the first fixation…

  13. Eye tracking detects disconjugate eye movements associated with structural traumatic brain injury and concussion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Samadani, Uzma; Ritlop, Robert; Reyes, Marleen; Nehrbass, Elena; Li, Meng; Lamm, Elizabeth; Schneider, Julia; Shimunov, David; Sava, Maria; Kolecki, Radek; Burris, Paige; Altomare, Lindsey; Mehmood, Talha; Smith, Theodore; Huang, Jason H; McStay, Christopher; Todd, S Rob; Qian, Meng; Kondziolka, Douglas; Wall, Stephen; Huang, Paul

    2015-04-15

    Disconjugate eye movements have been associated with traumatic brain injury since ancient times. Ocular motility dysfunction may be present in up to 90% of patients with concussion or blast injury. We developed an algorithm for eye tracking in which the Cartesian coordinates of the right and left pupils are tracked over 200 sec and compared to each other as a subject watches a short film clip moving inside an aperture on a computer screen. We prospectively eye tracked 64 normal healthy noninjured control subjects and compared findings to 75 trauma subjects with either a positive head computed tomography (CT) scan (n=13), negative head CT (n=39), or nonhead injury (n=23) to determine whether eye tracking would reveal the disconjugate gaze associated with both structural brain injury and concussion. Tracking metrics were then correlated to the clinical concussion measure Sport Concussion Assessment Tool 3 (SCAT3) in trauma patients. Five out of five measures of horizontal disconjugacy were increased in positive and negative head CT patients relative to noninjured control subjects. Only one of five vertical disconjugacy measures was significantly increased in brain-injured patients relative to controls. Linear regression analysis of all 75 trauma patients demonstrated that three metrics for horizontal disconjugacy negatively correlated with SCAT3 symptom severity score and positively correlated with total Standardized Assessment of Concussion score. Abnormal eye-tracking metrics improved over time toward baseline in brain-injured subjects observed in follow-up. Eye tracking may help quantify the severity of ocular motility disruption associated with concussion and structural brain injury.

  14. The influence of artificial scotomas on eye movements during visual search

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Cornelissen, FW; Bruin, KJ; Kooijman, AC

    Purpose. Fixation durations are normally adapted to the difficulty of the foveal analysis task. We examine to what extent artificial central and peripheral visual field defects interfere with this adaptation process. Methods. Subjects performed a visual search task while their eye movements were

  15. An exploratory study: prolonged periods of binocular stimulation can provide an effective treatment for childhood amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knox, Pamela J; Simmers, Anita J; Gray, Lyle S; Cleary, Marie

    2012-02-21

    The purpose of the present study was to explore the potential for treating childhood amblyopia with a binocular stimulus designed to correlate the visual input from both eyes. Eight strabismic, two anisometropic, and four strabismic and anisometropic amblyopes (mean age, 8.5 ± 2.6 years) undertook a dichoptic perceptual learning task for five sessions (each lasting 1 hour) over the course of a week. The training paradigm involved a simple computer game, which required the subject to use both eyes to perform the task. A statistically significant improvement (t(₁₃) = 5.46; P = 0.0001) in the mean visual acuity (VA) of the amblyopic eye (AE) was demonstrated, from 0.51 ± 0.27 logMAR before training to 0.42 ± 0.28 logMAR after training with six subjects gaining 0.1 logMAR or more of improvement. Measurable stereofunction was established for the first time in three subjects with an overall significant mean improvement in stereoacuity after training (t(₁₃) =2.64; P = 0.02). The dichoptic-based perceptual learning therapy employed in the present study improved both the monocular VA of the AE and stereofunction, verifying the feasibility of a binocular approach in the treatment of childhood amblyopia.

  16. Novel method for evaluation of eye movements in patients with narcolepsy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christensen, Julie A E; Kempfner, Lykke; Leonthin, Helle L

    2017-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Narcolepsy causes abnormalities in the control of wake-sleep, non-rapid-eye-movement (non-REM) sleep and REM sleep, which includes specific eye movements (EMs). In this study, we aim to evaluate EM characteristics in narcolepsy as compared to controls using an automated detector....... RESULTS: NT1 patients had significantly less EMs during wake, N1, and N2 sleep and more EMs during REM sleep compared to clinical controls, and significantly less EMs during wake and N1 sleep compared to NT2 patients. Furthermore, NT1 patients showed less EMs during NREM sleep in the first sleep cycle....... METHODS: We developed a data-driven method to detect EMs during sleep based on two EOG signals recorded as part of a polysomnography (PSG). The method was optimized using the manually scored hypnograms from 36 control subjects. The detector was applied on a clinical sample with subjects suspected...

  17. Narrative comprehension and production in children with SLI: An eye movement study

    Science.gov (United States)

    ANDREU, LLORENÇ; SANZ-TORRENT, MONICA; OLMOS, JOAN GUÀRDIA; MACWHINNEY, BRIAN

    2014-01-01

    This study investigates narrative comprehension and production in children with specific language impairment (SLI). Twelve children with SLI (mean age 5; 8 years) and 12 typically developing children (mean age 5; 6 years) participated in an eye-tracking experiment designed to investigate online narrative comprehension and production in Catalan- and Spanish-speaking children with SLI. The comprehension task involved the recording of eye movements during the visual exploration of successive scenes in a story, while listening to the associated narrative. With regard to production, the children were asked to retell the story, while once again looking at the scenes, as their eye movements were monitored. During narrative production, children with SLI look at the most semantically relevant areas of the scenes fewer times than their age-matched controls, but no differences were found in narrative comprehension. Moreover, the analyses of speech productions revealed that children with SLI retained less information and made more semantic and syntactic errors during retelling. Implications for theories that characterize SLI are discussed. PMID:21453036

  18. Morbidities in rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jennum, Poul; Mayer, Geert; Ju, Yo-El

    2013-01-01

    Idiopathic rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (iRBD, RBD without any obvious comorbid major neurological disease), is strongly associated with numerous comorbid conditions. The most prominent is that with neurodegenerative disorders, especially synuclein-mediated disorders, above all...... function, neuropsychiatric manifestations and sleep complaints. Furthermore, patients with PD and RBD may have worse prognosis in terms of impaired cognitive function and overall morbidity/mortality; in dementia, the presence of RBD is strongly associated with clinical hallmarks and pathological findings...

  19. Colour-grapheme synaesthesia affects binocular vision

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chris L.E. Paffen

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available In colour-grapheme synaesthesia, non-coloured graphemes are perceived as being inherently coloured. In recent years, it has become evident that synaesthesia-inducing graphemes can affect visual processing in a manner comparable to real, physical colours. Here, we exploit the phenomenon of binocular rivalry in which incompatible images presented dichoptically compete for conscious expression. Importantly, the competition only arises if the two images are sufficiently different; if the difference between the images is small, the images will fuse into a single mixed percept. We show that achromatic graphemes that induce synaesthetic colour percepts evoke binocular rivalry, while without the synaesthetic percept, they do not. That is, compared to achromatically perceived graphemes, synaesthesia-inducing graphemes increase the predominance of binocular rivalry over binocular fusion. This finding shows that the synaesthetic colour experience can provide the conditions for evoking binocular rivalry, much like stimulus features that induce rivalry in normal vision.

  20. Three-dimensional organization of vestibular related eye movements to rotational motion in pigeons

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dickman, J. D.; Beyer, M.; Hess, B. J.

    2000-01-01

    During rotational motions, compensatory eye movement adjustments must continually occur in order to maintain objects of visual interest as stable images on the retina. In the present study, the three-dimensional organization of the vestibulo-ocular reflex in pigeons was quantitatively examined. Rotations about different head axes produced horizontal, vertical, and torsional eye movements, whose component magnitude was dependent upon the cosine of the stimulus axis relative to the animal's visual axis. Thus, the three-dimensional organization of the VOR in pigeons appears to be compensatory for any direction of head rotation. Frequency responses of the horizontal, vertical, and torsional slow phase components exhibited high pass filter properties with dominant time constants of approximately 3 s.

  1. Is having similar eye movement patterns during face learning and recognition beneficial for recognition performance? Evidence from hidden Markov modeling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chuk, Tim; Chan, Antoni B; Hsiao, Janet H

    2017-12-01

    The hidden Markov model (HMM)-based approach for eye movement analysis is able to reflect individual differences in both spatial and temporal aspects of eye movements. Here we used this approach to understand the relationship between eye movements during face learning and recognition, and its association with recognition performance. We discovered holistic (i.e., mainly looking at the face center) and analytic (i.e., specifically looking at the two eyes in addition to the face center) patterns during both learning and recognition. Although for both learning and recognition, participants who adopted analytic patterns had better recognition performance than those with holistic patterns, a significant positive correlation between the likelihood of participants' patterns being classified as analytic and their recognition performance was only observed during recognition. Significantly more participants adopted holistic patterns during learning than recognition. Interestingly, about 40% of the participants used different patterns between learning and recognition, and among them 90% switched their patterns from holistic at learning to analytic at recognition. In contrast to the scan path theory, which posits that eye movements during learning have to be recapitulated during recognition for the recognition to be successful, participants who used the same or different patterns during learning and recognition did not differ in recognition performance. The similarity between their learning and recognition eye movement patterns also did not correlate with their recognition performance. These findings suggested that perceptuomotor memory elicited by eye movement patterns during learning does not play an important role in recognition. In contrast, the retrieval of diagnostic information for recognition, such as the eyes for face recognition, is a better predictor for recognition performance. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Reading "sun" and looking up: the influence of language on saccadic eye movements in the vertical dimension.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carolin Dudschig

    Full Text Available Traditionally, language processing has been attributed to a separate system in the brain, which supposedly works in an abstract propositional manner. However, there is increasing evidence suggesting that language processing is strongly interrelated with sensorimotor processing. Evidence for such an interrelation is typically drawn from interactions between language and perception or action. In the current study, the effect of words that refer to entities in the world with a typical location (e.g., sun, worm on the planning of saccadic eye movements was investigated. Participants had to perform a lexical decision task on visually presented words and non-words. They responded by moving their eyes to a target in an upper (lower screen position for a word (non-word or vice versa. Eye movements were faster to locations compatible with the word's referent in the real world. These results provide evidence for the importance of linguistic stimuli in directing eye movements, even if the words do not directly transfer directional information.

  3. Modeling the convergence accommodation of stereo vision for binocular endoscopy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gao, Yuanqian; Li, Jinhua; Li, Jianmin; Wang, Shuxin

    2018-02-01

    The stereo laparoscope is an important tool for achieving depth perception in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (MIS). A dynamic convergence accommodation algorithm is proposed to improve the viewing experience and achieve accurate depth perception. Based on the principle of the human vision system, a positional kinematic model of the binocular view system is established. The imaging plane pair is rectified to ensure that the two rectified virtual optical axes intersect at the fixation target to provide immersive depth perception. Stereo disparity was simulated with the roll and pitch movements of the binocular system. The chessboard test and the endoscopic peg transfer task were performed, and the results demonstrated the improved disparity distribution and robustness of the proposed convergence accommodation method with respect to the position of the fixation target. This method offers a new solution for effective depth perception with the stereo laparoscopes used in robot-assisted MIS. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  4. Combined fMRI- and eye movement-based decoding of bistable plaid motion perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilbertz, Gregor; Ketkar, Madhura; Guggenmos, Matthias; Sterzer, Philipp

    2018-05-01

    The phenomenon of bistable perception, in which perception alternates spontaneously despite constant sensory stimulation, has been particularly useful in probing the neural bases of conscious perception. The study of such bistability requires access to the observer's perceptual dynamics, which is usually achieved via active report. This report, however, constitutes a confounding factor in the study of conscious perception and can also be biased in the context of certain experimental manipulations. One approach to circumvent these problems is to track perceptual alternations using signals from the eyes or the brain instead of observers' reports. Here we aimed to optimize such decoding of perceptual alternations by combining eye and brain signals. Eye-tracking and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed in twenty participants while they viewed a bistable visual plaid motion stimulus and reported perceptual alternations. Multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) for fMRI was combined with eye-tracking in a Support vector machine to decode participants' perceptual time courses from fMRI and eye-movement signals. While both measures individually already yielded high decoding accuracies (on average 86% and 88% correct, respectively) classification based on the two measures together further improved the accuracy (91% correct). These findings show that leveraging on both fMRI and eye movement data may pave the way for optimized no-report paradigms through improved decodability of bistable motion perception and hence for a better understanding of the neural correlates of consciousness. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. How memory mechanisms are a key component in the guidance of our eye movements: Evidence from the global effect

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Silvis, J.D.; van der Stigchel, S.

    2014-01-01

    Investigating eye movements has been a promising approach to uncover the role of visual working memory in early attentional processes. Prior research has already demonstrated that eye movements in search tasks are more easily drawn toward stimuli that show similarities to working memory content, as

  6. How memory mechanisms are a key component in the guidance of our eye movements : Evidence from the global effect

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Silvis, J. D.; Van der Stigchel, S.

    2014-01-01

    Investigating eye movements has been a promising approach to uncover the role of visual working memory in early attentional processes. Prior research has already demonstrated that eye movements in search tasks are more easily drawn toward stimuli that show similarities to working memory content, as

  7. Rapid eye movement-sleep is reduced in patients with acute uncomplicated diverticulitis—an observational study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chenxi Huang

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Introduction. Sleep disturbances are commonly found in patients in the postoperative period. Sleep disturbances may give rise to several complications including cardiopulmonary instability, transient cognitive dysfunction and prolonged convalescence. Many factors including host inflammatory responses are believed to cause postoperative sleep disturbances, as inflammatory responses can alter sleep architecture through cytokine-brain interactions. Our aim was to investigate alteration of sleep architecture during acute infection and its relationships to inflammation and clinical symptoms.Materials & Methods. In this observational study, we included patients with acute uncomplicated diverticulitis as a model to investigate the isolated effects of inflammatory responses on sleep. Eleven patients completed the study. Patients were admitted and treated with antibiotics for two nights, during which study endpoints were measured by polysomnography recordings, self-reported discomfort scores and blood samples of cytokines. One month later, the patients, who now were in complete remission, were readmitted and the endpoints were re-measured (the baseline values.Results. Total sleep time was reduced 4% and 7% the first (p = 0.006 and second (p = 0.014 nights of diverticulitis, compared to baseline, respectively. The rapid eye movement sleep was reduced 33% the first night (p = 0.016, compared to baseline. Moreover, plasma IL-6 levels were correlated to non-rapid eye movement sleep, rapid eye movement sleep and fatigue.Conclusion. Total sleep time and rapid eye movement sleep were reduced during nights with active diverticulitis and correlated with markers of inflammation.

  8. Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder--diagnostik, årsager og behandling

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zoetmulder, Marielle; Jennum, Poul Jørgen

    2009-01-01

    Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) is characterized by loss of REM sleep and related electromyographic atonia with marked muscular activity and dream enactment behaviour. RBD is seen in 0.5% of the population. It occurs in an idiopathic form and secondarily to medical...

  9. Effect of depression on psychomotor skills, eye movements and recognition memory

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Deijen, J.B.; Orlebeke, J.F.; Rijsdijk, F.V.

    1993-01-01

    In this study 12 depressed outpatients were compared to 12 healthy controls with respect to their performance on a number of cognitive tasks, including a recognition-memory task, and their eye movements and pupil size were recorded while watching a traffic film. The recognition-memory task consisted

  10. Maximum entropy perception-action space: a Bayesian model of eye movement selection

    OpenAIRE

    Colas , Francis; Bessière , Pierre; Girard , Benoît

    2010-01-01

    International audience; In this article, we investigate the issue of the selection of eye movements in a free-eye Multiple Object Tracking task. We propose a Bayesian model of retinotopic maps with a complex logarithmic mapping. This model is structured in two parts: a representation of the visual scene, and a decision model based on the representation. We compare different decision models based on different features of the representation and we show that taking into account uncertainty helps...

  11. The effect of beat frequency on eye movements during free viewing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maróti, Emese; Knakker, Balázs; Vidnyánszky, Zoltán; Weiss, Béla

    2017-02-01

    External periodic stimuli entrain brain oscillations and affect perception and attention. It has been shown that background music can change oculomotor behavior and facilitate detection of visual objects occurring on the musical beat. However, whether musical beats in different tempi modulate information sampling differently during natural viewing remains to be explored. Here we addressed this question by investigating how listening to naturalistic drum grooves in two different tempi affects eye movements of participants viewing natural scenes on a computer screen. We found that the beat frequency of the drum grooves modulated the rate of eye movements: fixation durations were increased at the lower beat frequency (1.7Hz) as compared to the higher beat frequency (2.4Hz) and no music conditions. Correspondingly, estimated visual sampling frequency decreased as fixation durations increased with lower beat frequency. These results imply that slow musical beats can retard sampling of visual information during natural viewing by increasing fixation durations. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Attention and choice: a review on eye movements in decision making.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Orquin, Jacob L; Mueller Loose, Simone

    2013-09-01

    This paper reviews studies on eye movements in decision making, and compares their observations to theoretical predictions concerning the role of attention in decision making. Four decision theories are examined: rational models, bounded rationality, evidence accumulation, and parallel constraint satisfaction models. Although most theories were confirmed with regard to certain predictions, none of the theories adequately accounted for the role of attention during decision making. Several observations emerged concerning the drivers and down-stream effects of attention on choice, suggesting that attention processes plays an active role in constructing decisions. So far, decision theories have largely ignored the constructive role of attention by assuming that it is entirely determined by heuristics, or that it consists of stochastic information sampling. The empirical observations reveal that these assumptions are implausible, and that more accurate assumptions could have been made based on prior attention and eye movement research. Future decision making research would benefit from greater integration with attention research. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. Crossmodal Semantic Constraints on Visual Perception of Binocular Rivalry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yi-Chuan Chen

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available Environments typically convey contextual information via several different sensory modalities. Here, we report a study designed to investigate the crossmodal semantic modulation of visual perception using the binocular rivalry paradigm. The participants viewed a dichoptic figure consisting of a bird and a car presented to each eye, while also listening to either a bird singing or car engine revving. Participants' dominant percepts were modulated by the presentation of a soundtrack associated with either bird or car, as compared to the presentation of a soundtrack irrelevant to both visual figures (tableware clattering together in a restaurant. No such crossmodal semantic effect was observed when the participants maintained an abstract semantic cue in memory. We then further demonstrate that crossmodal semantic modulation can be dissociated from the effects of high-level attentional control over the dichoptic figures and of low-level luminance contrast of the figures. In sum, we demonstrate a novel crossmodal effect in terms of crossmodal semantic congruency on binocular rivalry. This effect can be considered a perceptual grouping or contextual constraint on human visual awareness through mid-level crossmodal excitatory connections embedded in the multisensory semantic network.

  14. Eye movement suppression interferes with construction of object-centered spatial reference frames in working memory

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wallentin, Mikkel; Kristensen, Line Burholt; Olsen, Jacob Hedeager

    2011-01-01

    The brain's frontal eye fields (FEF), responsible for eye movement control, are known to be involved in spatial working memory (WM). In a previous fMRI experiment (Wallentin, Roepstorff & Burgess, Neuropsychologia, 2008) it was found that FEF activation was primarily related to the formation...

  15. An ancient explanation of presbyopia based on binocular vision.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barbero, Sergio

    2014-06-01

    Presbyopia, understood as the age-related loss of ability to clearly see near objects, was known to ancient Greeks. However, few references to it can be found in ancient manuscripts. A relevant discussion on presbyopia appears in a book called Symposiacs written by Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus around 100 A.C. In this work, Plutarch provided four explanations of presbyopia, associated with different theories of vision. One of the explanations is particularly interesting as it is based on a binocular theory of vision. In this theory, vision is produced when visual rays, emanating from the eyes, form visual cones that impinge on the objects to be seen. Visual rays coming from old people's eyes, it was supposed, are weaker than those from younger people's eyes; so the theory, to be logically coherent, implies that this effect is compensated by the increase in light intensity due to the overlapping, at a certain distance, of the visual cones coming from both eyes. Thus, it benefits the reader to move the reading text further away from the eyes in order to increase the fusion area of both visual cones. The historical hypothesis taking into consideration that the astronomer Hipparchus of Nicaea was the source of Plutarch's explanation of the theory is discussed. © 2013 Acta Ophthalmologica Scandinavica Foundation. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  16. Universality in eye movements and reading: A trilingual investigation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liversedge, Simon P; Drieghe, Denis; Li, Xin; Yan, Guoli; Bai, Xuejun; Hyönä, Jukka

    2016-02-01

    Universality in language has been a core issue in the fields of linguistics and psycholinguistics for many years (e.g., Chomsky, 1965). Recently, Frost (2012) has argued that establishing universals of process is critical to the development of meaningful, theoretically motivated, cross-linguistic models of reading. In contrast, other researchers argue that there is no such thing as universals of reading (e.g., Coltheart & Crain, 2012). Reading is a complex, visually mediated psychological process, and eye movements are the behavioural means by which we encode the visual information required for linguistic processing. To investigate universality of representation and process across languages we examined eye movement behaviour during reading of very comparable stimuli in three languages, Chinese, English and Finnish. These languages differ in numerous respects (character based vs. alphabetic, visual density, informational density, word spacing, orthographic depth, agglutination, etc.). We used linear mixed modelling techniques to identify variables that captured common variance across languages. Despite fundamental visual and linguistic differences in the orthographies, statistical models of reading behaviour were strikingly similar in a number of respects, and thus, we argue that their composition might reflect universality of representation and process in reading. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. Intuitive Face Judgments Rely on Holistic Eye Movement Pattern

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laura F. Mega

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Non-verbal signals such as facial expressions are of paramount importance for social encounters. Their perception predominantly occurs without conscious awareness and is effortlessly integrated into social interactions. In other words, face perception is intuitive. Contrary to classical intuition tasks, this work investigates intuitive processes in the realm of every-day type social judgments. Two differently instructed groups of participants judged the authenticity of emotional facial expressions, while their eye movements were recorded: an ‘intuitive group,’ instructed to rely on their “gut feeling” for the authenticity judgments, and a ‘deliberative group,’ instructed to make their judgments after careful analysis of the face. Pixel-wise statistical maps of the resulting eye movements revealed a differential viewing pattern, wherein the intuitive judgments relied on fewer, longer and more centrally located fixations. These markers have been associated with a global/holistic viewing strategy. The holistic pattern of intuitive face judgments is in line with evidence showing that intuition is related to processing the “gestalt” of an object, rather than focusing on details. Our work thereby provides further evidence that intuitive processes are characterized by holistic perception, in an understudied and real world domain of intuition research.

  18. Effectiveness of a Binocular Video Game vs Placebo Video Game for Improving Visual Functions in Older Children, Teenagers, and Adults With Amblyopia: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gao, Tina Y; Guo, Cindy X; Babu, Raiju J; Black, Joanna M; Bobier, William R; Chakraborty, Arijit; Dai, Shuan; Hess, Robert F; Jenkins, Michelle; Jiang, Yannan; Kearns, Lisa S; Kowal, Lionel; Lam, Carly S Y; Pang, Peter C K; Parag, Varsha; Pieri, Roberto; Raveendren, Rajkumar Nallour; South, Jayshree; Staffieri, Sandra Elfride; Wadham, Angela; Walker, Natalie; Thompson, Benjamin

    2018-02-01

    Binocular amblyopia treatment using contrast-rebalanced stimuli showed promise in laboratory studies and requires clinical trial investigation in a home-based setting. To compare the effectiveness of a binocular video game with a placebo video game for improving visual functions in older children and adults. The Binocular Treatment of Amblyopia Using Videogames clinical trial was a multicenter, double-masked, randomized clinical trial. Between March 2014 and June 2016, 115 participants 7 years and older with unilateral amblyopia (amblyopic eye visual acuity, 0.30-1.00 logMAR; Snellen equivalent, 20/40-20/200) due to anisometropia, strabismus, or both were recruited. Eligible participants were allocated with equal chance to receive either the active or the placebo video game, with minimization stratified by age group (child, age 7 to 12 years; teenager, age 13 to 17 years; and adult, 18 years and older). Falling-blocks video games played at home on an iPod Touch for 1 hour per day for 6 weeks. The active video game had game elements split between eyes with a dichoptic contrast offset (mean [SD] initial fellow eye contrast, 0.23 [0.14]). The placebo video game presented identical images to both eyes. Change in amblyopic eye visual acuity at 6 weeks. Secondary outcomes included compliance, stereoacuity, and interocular suppression. Participants and clinicians who measured outcomes were masked to treatment allocation. Of the 115 included participants, 65 (56.5%) were male and 83 (72.2%) were white, and the mean (SD) age at randomization was 21.5 (13.6) years. There were 89 participants (77.4%) who had prior occlusion. The mean (SD) amblyopic eye visual acuity improved 0.06 (0.12) logMAR from baseline in the active group (n = 56) and 0.07 (0.10) logMAR in the placebo group (n = 59). The mean treatment difference between groups, adjusted for baseline visual acuity and age group, was -0.02 logMAR (95% CI, -0.06 to 0.02; P = .25). Compliance with more than 25

  19. Role of norepinephrine in the regulation of rapid eye movement sleep

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Sleep and wakefulness are instinctive behaviours that are present across the animal species. Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a unique biological phenomenon expressed during sleep. It evolved about 300 million years ago and is noticed in the more evolved animal species. Although it has been objectively identified ...

  20. Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder--diagnostik, årsager og behandling

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zoetmulder, Marielle; Jennum, Poul Jørgen

    2009-01-01

    Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) is characterized by loss of REM sleep and related electromyographic atonia with marked muscular activity and dream enactment behaviour. RBD is seen in 0.5% of the population. It occurs in an idiopathic form and secondarily to medical and neu...

  1. Eye and hand movements during reconstruction of spatial memory

    OpenAIRE

    Burke, MR; Allen, RJ; Gonzalez, C

    2012-01-01

    © 2012 a Pion publication Recent behavioural and biological evidence indicates common mechanisms serving working memory and attention (e.g., Awh et al, 2006 Neuroscience 139 201-208). This study explored the role of spatial attention and visual search in an adapted Corsi spatial memory task. Eye movements and touch responses were recorded from participants who recalled locations (signalled by colour or shape change) from an array presented either simultaneously or sequentially. The time de...

  2. Eye and Hand Movements during Reconstruction of Spatial Memory

    OpenAIRE

    Melanie Rose Burke; Richard Allen; Matilda Webster; Claudia Gonzalez

    2012-01-01

    Recent behavioural and biological evidence indicates common mechanisms serving working memory and attention (eg, Awh et al 2006, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10, 124–130). This study explored the role of spatial attention and visual search in an adapted Corsi spatial memory task. Eye movements and touch responses were recorded from participants who recalled locations (signalled by colour or shape change) from an array presented either simultaneously or sequentially. The time delay between tar...

  3. Binocular versus standard occlusion or blurring treatment for unilateral amblyopia in children aged three to eight years.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tailor, Vijay; Bossi, Manuela; Bunce, Catey; Greenwood, John A; Dahlmann-Noor, Annegret

    2015-08-11

    Current treatments for amblyopia in children, occlusion and pharmacological blurring, have had limited success, with less than two-thirds of children achieving good visual acuity of at least 0.20 logMAR in the amblyopic eye, limited improvement of stereopsis, and poor compliance. A new treatment approach, based on the dichoptic presentation of movies or computer games (images presented separately to each eye), may yield better results, as it aims to balance the input of visual information from each eye to the brain. Compliance may also improve with these more child-friendly treatment procedures. To determine whether binocular treatments in children aged three to eight years with unilateral amblyopia result in better visual outcomes than conventional occlusion or pharmacological blurring treatment. We searched the Cochrane Eyes and Vision Group Trials Register (last date of searches: 14 April 2015), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL; 2015, Issue 3), Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid MEDLINE In-Process and Other Non-Indexed Citations, Ovid MEDLINE Daily, Ovid OLDMEDLINE (January 1946 to April 2015), EMBASE (January 1980 to April 2015), the ISRCTN registry (www.isrctn.com/editAdvancedSearch), ClinicalTrials.gov (www.clinicaltrials.gov), and the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) (www.who.int/ictrp/search/en). We did not use any date or language restrictions in the electronic searches for trials. Two review authors independently screened the results of the search in order to identify studies that met the inclusion criteria of the review: randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that enrolled participants between the ages of three and eight years old with unilateral amblyopia, defined as best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) worse than 0.200 logMAR in the amblyopic eye, and BCVA 0.200 logMAR or better in the fellow eye, in the presence of an amblyogenic risk factor such as anisometropia, strabismus, or both. Prior

  4. Consistency of eye movements in MOT using horizontally flipped trials

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Děchtěrenko, F.; Lukavský, Jiří

    2013-01-01

    Roč. 42, Suppl (2013), s. 42-42 ISSN 0301-0066. [36th European Conference on Visual Perception. 25.08.2013.-29.08.2013, Brémy] R&D Projects: GA ČR GA13-28709S Institutional support: RVO:68081740 Keywords : eye movements * symmetry * consistency Subject RIV: AN - Psychology http://www.ecvp.uni-bremen.de/~ecvpprog/abstract164.html

  5. Strabismus and the Oculomotor System: Insights from Macaque Models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Das, Vallabh E.

    2017-01-01

    Disrupting binocular vision in infancy leads to strabismus and oftentimes to a variety of associated visual sensory deficits and oculomotor abnormalities. Investigation of this disorder has been aided by the development of various animal models, each of which has advantages and disadvantages. In comparison to studies of binocular visual responses in cortical structures, investigations of neural oculomotor structures that mediate the misalignment and abnormalities of eye movements have been more recent, and these studies have shown that different brain areas are intimately involved in driving several aspects of the strabismic condition, including horizontal misalignment, dissociated deviations, A and V patterns of strabismus, disconjugate eye movements, nystagmus, and fixation switch. The responses of cells in visual and oculomotor areas that potentially drive the sensory deficits and also eye alignment and eye movement abnormalities follow a general theme of disrupted calibration, lower sensitivity, and poorer specificity compared with the normally developed visual oculomotor system. PMID:28532347

  6. Incremental comprehension of pitch relationships in written music: Evidence from eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hadley, Lauren V; Sturt, Patrick; Eerola, Tuomas; Pickering, Martin J

    2017-03-17

    To investigate how proficient pianists comprehend pitch relationships in written music when they first encounter it we conducted two experiments in which proficient pianists' eyes were tracked while they read and played single-line melodies. In Experiment 1, participants played at their own speed; in Experiment 2 they played with an external metronome. The melodies were either congruent or anomalous, with the anomaly involving one bar being shifted in pitch to alter the implied harmonic structure (e.g., non-resolution of a dominant). In both experiments, anomaly led to rapid disruption in participants' eye-movements in terms of regressions from the target bar, indicating that pianists process written pitch relationships online. This is particularly striking because in musical sight-reading eye movement behaviour is constrained by the concurrent performance. Both experiments also showed that anomaly induced pupil dilation. Together these results indicate that proficient pianists rapidly integrate the music that they read into the prior context, and that anomalies in terms of pitch relationships lead to processing difficulty. These findings parallel those of text reading, suggesting that structural processing involves similar constraints across domains.

  7. A Biologically Realistic Cortical Model of Eye Movement Control in Reading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heinzle, Jakob; Hepp, Klaus; Martin, Kevan A. C.

    2010-01-01

    Reading is a highly complex task involving a precise integration of vision, attention, saccadic eye movements, and high-level language processing. Although there is a long history of psychological research in reading, it is only recently that imaging studies have identified some neural correlates of reading. Thus, the underlying neural mechanisms…

  8. Separating monocular and binocular neural mechanisms mediating chromatic contextual interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    D'Antona, Anthony D; Christiansen, Jens H; Shevell, Steven K

    2014-04-17

    When seen in isolation, a light that varies in chromaticity over time is perceived to oscillate in color. Perception of that same time-varying light may be altered by a surrounding light that is also temporally varying in chromaticity. The neural mechanisms that mediate these contextual interactions are the focus of this article. Observers viewed a central test stimulus that varied in chromaticity over time within a larger surround that also varied in chromaticity at the same temporal frequency. Center and surround were presented either to the same eye (monocular condition) or to opposite eyes (dichoptic condition) at the same frequency (3.125, 6.25, or 9.375 Hz). Relative phase between center and surround modulation was varied. In both the monocular and dichoptic conditions, the perceived modulation depth of the central light depended on the relative phase of the surround. A simple model implementing a linear combination of center and surround modulation fit the measurements well. At the lowest temporal frequency (3.125 Hz), the surround's influence was virtually identical for monocular and dichoptic conditions, suggesting that at this frequency, the surround's influence is mediated primarily by a binocular neural mechanism. At higher frequencies, the surround's influence was greater for the monocular condition than for the dichoptic condition, and this difference increased with temporal frequency. Our findings show that two separate neural mechanisms mediate chromatic contextual interactions: one binocular and dominant at lower temporal frequencies and the other monocular and dominant at higher frequencies (6-10 Hz).

  9. The induction and compensation of asymmetric eye movements following unilateral blockage of a horizontal semicircular canal in the rabbit.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barmack, N H; Pettorossi, V E

    1988-08-01

    The influence of unilateral plugs of the left horizontal semicircular canal (LHC plugs) of rabbits on the development and compensation of asymmetric eye movements evoked by horizontal vestibular stimulation was studied. LHC plugs caused an immediate reduction of 50-65% in the gain of the horizontal vestibuloocular reflex (HVOR). This reduction in gain was achieved without altering the symmetry of the HVOR, and was accompanied by a change in the axial alignment of eye movements evoked by vestibular stimulation about the vertical (HVOR) and longitudinal (VVOR) axes. Postoperative asymmetry of eye movements developed 12-48 hr after the plugging operation. The development of asymmetry was reduced if the rabbit was restrained for 24 hr, thereby minimizing vestibular stimulation following the plugging operation. Over a 3-4 week period, the normal symmetry of eye movements was restored and the axial alignments of the HVOR and VVOR returned to the preoperative values. The gain of the HVOR did not recover. The horizontal cervicoocular reflex (HCOR) was examined before the plugging operation and after compensation of asymmetry was complete. The gain and phase of the HCOR were not altered. A relatively simple set of explanations at a cellular level is proposed to account for the induction and compensation of asymmetric eye movements following a unilateral plug of the horizontal semicircular canal.

  10. Hawk eyes II: diurnal raptors differ in head movement strategies when scanning from perches.

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Rourke, Colleen T; Pitlik, Todd; Hoover, Melissa; Fernández-Juricic, Esteban

    2010-09-22

    Relatively little is known about the degree of inter-specific variability in visual scanning strategies in species with laterally placed eyes (e.g., birds). This is relevant because many species detect prey while perching; therefore, head movement behavior may be an indicator of prey detection rate, a central parameter in foraging models. We studied head movement strategies in three diurnal raptors belonging to the Accipitridae and Falconidae families. We used behavioral recording of individuals under field and captive conditions to calculate the rate of two types of head movements and the interval between consecutive head movements. Cooper's Hawks had the highest rate of regular head movements, which can facilitate tracking prey items in the visually cluttered environment they inhabit (e.g., forested habitats). On the other hand, Red-tailed Hawks showed long intervals between consecutive head movements, which is consistent with prey searching in less visually obstructed environments (e.g., open habitats) and with detecting prey movement from a distance with their central foveae. Finally, American Kestrels have the highest rates of translational head movements (vertical or frontal displacements of the head keeping the bill in the same direction), which have been associated with depth perception through motion parallax. Higher translational head movement rates may be a strategy to compensate for the reduced degree of eye movement of this species. Cooper's Hawks, Red-tailed Hawks, and American Kestrels use both regular and translational head movements, but to different extents. We conclude that these diurnal raptors have species-specific strategies to gather visual information while perching. These strategies may optimize prey search and detection with different visual systems in habitat types with different degrees of visual obstruction.

  11. Frontal and parietal transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) disturbs programming of saccadic eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zangemeister, W H; Canavan, A G; Hoemberg, V

    1995-11-01

    Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of human motor cortex typically evoked motor responses. TMS has failed to elicit eye movements in humans, whereas prolongations of saccadic latency have been reported with TMS. In previous studied we demonstrated that saccades can be abolished or saccadic trajectories can be changed through TMS in the 100 msec before saccade onset. This effect was especially marked when TMS was applied parietally. TMS never influenced a saccade in flight. Simulations of predictive experimental saccades that were impaired through TMS of the frontal or parietal cortex demonstrated especially that the dynamics of small saccades were markedly influenced, resulting in a significant decrease in acceleration and amplitude, or an almost complete inhibition. The impact of inhibition through TMS was critically dependent on timing: early TMS (-70 msec) had a much larger inhibitory effect than late TMS (-20 msec) on experimental saccades. Differential timing of TMS in influencing the cortical control signal is demonstrated through simulations of a reciprocally innervated eye movement model that paralleled empirically determined changes in eye movement dynamics after real TMS. There is a reasonable match between the model and the experimental data. We conclude that the inhibitory action of a presaccadic disturbance, such as a TMS pulse, on saccadic programming is inversely related to timing and amplitude of the predicted saccade.

  12. Sony PlayStation EyeToy elicits higher levels of movement than the Nintendo Wii: implications for stroke rehabilitation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neil, A; Ens, S; Pelletier, R; Jarus, T; Rand, D

    2013-02-01

    Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging trend in stroke rehabilitation. VR gaming consoles in stroke intervention have been shown to increase motivation and enjoyment during exercise. The amount and intensity of movements elicited using these consoles are unknown. The aims of this study were: (1) to quantify the amount and intensity of movement elicited from both hands of two groups of individuals ([chronic stroke and without a disability [healthy]); (2) to determine the effect of console (Wii/EyeToy) and group (stroke/healthy) on the amount and intensity of upper extremity movement; (3) to determine the effect of console (Wii/EyeToy) and group (stroke/healthy) on the usability and VR experience. A cross-sectional design was taken. Outpatient rehabilitation setting and healthy participant's homes. Participants included ten adults with stroke and ten adults without a disability. Participants experienced two games from each console. Amount and intensity of movement was measured using accelerometers on both wrists, while the virtual experience and usability was determined with questionnaires. No significant differences were found between the consoles usability and experience. EyeToy elicited significantly greater activity count than Wii among the healthy participants (P=0.028) and significantly greater movement intensity in both the stroke (P=0.005) and healthy (P=0.005) groups. Both consoles rated high for usability, enjoyment and satisfaction highlighting their suitability for a range of individuals in stroke rehabilitation. EyeToy provides increased movement and movement intensity. Both consoles are suitable for use in stroke rehabilitation however this information can be helpful to clinicians while selecting a gaming console according to the type and intensity of movements that he/she aims to encourage during therapy.

  13. Fisiologia da visão binocular Physiology of binocular vision

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Harley E. A. Bicas

    2004-02-01

    Full Text Available A visão binocular de seres humanos resulta da superposição quase completa dos campos visuais de cada olho, o que suscita discriminação perceptual de localizações espaciais de objetos relativamente ao observador (localização egocêntrica bem mais fina (estereopsia, mas isso ocorre em, apenas, uma faixa muito estreita (o horóptero. Aquém e além dela, acham-se presentes diplopia e confusão, sendo necessária supressão fisiológica (cortical para evitá-las. Analisa-se a geometria do horóptero e suas implicações fisiológicas (o desvio de Hillebrand, a partição de Kundt, a área de Panum, assim como aspectos clínicos da visão binocular normal (percepção simultânea, fusão, visão estereoscópica e de adaptações a seus estados afetados (supressão patológica, ambliopia, correspondência visual anômala.The binocular vision of human beings is given by the almost complete superimposition of the monocular visual fields, which allows a finer perceptual discrimination of the egocentric localization of objects in space (stereopsis but only within a very narrow band (the horopter. Before and beyond it, diplopia and confusion are present, so that a physiologic (cortical suppression is necessary to avoid them to become conscious. The geometry of the horopter and its physiologic implications (Hillebrand's deviation, Kundt's partition, Panum's area, stereoscopic vision are analyzed, as well as some clinical aspects of the normal binocular vision (simultaneous perception, fusion, stereoscopic vision and of adaptations to abnormal states (pathologic suppression, amblyopia, abnormal retinal correspondence.

  14. Troxler Fading, Eye Movements, and Retinal Ganglion Cell Properties

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Romain Bachy

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available We present four movies demonstrating the effect of flicker and blur on the magnitude and speed of adaptation for foveal and peripheral vision along the three color axes that isolate retinal ganglion cells projecting to magno, parvo, and konio layers of the LGN. The demonstrations support the eye movement hypothesis for Troxler fading for brightness and color, and demonstrate the effects of flicker and blur on adaptation of each class of retinal ganglion cells.

  15. Evidence for object permanence in the smooth-pursuit eye movements of monkeys.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Churchland, Mark M; Chou, I-Han; Lisberger, Stephen G

    2003-10-01

    We recorded the smooth-pursuit eye movements of monkeys in response to targets that were extinguished (blinked) for 200 ms in mid-trajectory. Eye velocity declined considerably during the target blinks, even when the blinks were completely predictable in time and space. Eye velocity declined whether blinks were presented during steady-state pursuit of a constant-velocity target, during initiation of pursuit before target velocity was reached, or during eye accelerations induced by a change in target velocity. When a physical occluder covered the trajectory of the target during blinks, creating the impression that the target moved behind it, the decline in eye velocity was reduced or abolished. If the target was occluded once the eye had reached target velocity, pursuit was only slightly poorer than normal, uninterrupted pursuit. In contrast, if the target was occluded during the initiation of pursuit, while the eye was accelerating toward target velocity, pursuit during occlusion was very different from normal pursuit. Eye velocity remained relatively stable during target occlusion, showing much less acceleration than normal pursuit and much less of a decline than was produced by a target blink. Anticipatory or predictive eye acceleration was typically observed just prior to the reappearance of the target. Computer simulations show that these results are best understood by assuming that a mechanism of eye-velocity memory remains engaged during target occlusion but is disengaged during target blinks.

  16. Scene perception and memory revealed by eye movements and receiver-operating characteristic analyses: does a cultural difference truly exist?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Evans, Kris; Rotello, Caren M; Li, Xingshan; Rayner, Keith

    2009-02-01

    Cultural differences have been observed in scene perception and memory: Chinese participants purportedly attend to the background information more than did American participants. We investigated the influence of culture by recording eye movements during scene perception and while participants made recognition memory judgements. Real-world pictures with a focal object on a background were shown to both American and Chinese participants while their eye movements were recorded. Later, memory for the focal object in each scene was tested, and the relationship between the focal object (studied, new) and the background context (studied, new) was manipulated. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves show that both sensitivity and response bias were changed when objects were tested in new contexts. However, neither the decrease in accuracy nor the response bias shift differed with culture. The eye movement patterns were also similar across cultural groups. Both groups made longer and more fixations on the focal objects than on the contexts. The similarity of eye movement patterns and recognition memory behaviour suggests that both Americans and Chinese use the same strategies in scene perception and memory.

  17. Receptive Vocabulary Knowledge in Low-Functioning Autism as Assessed by Eye Movements, Pupillary Dilation, and Event-Related Potentials

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-06-01

    screening questionnaire for Asperger Syndrome and other high-functioning autism spectrum disorders in school age children. Journal of Autism ...Award Number: W81XWH-10-1-0404 TITLE: Receptive Vocabulary Knowledge in Low-Functioning Autism as Assessed by Eye Movements, Pupillary...Knowledge in Low-Functioning Autism as Assessed by Eye- Movements, Pupillary Dilation, and Event-Related Potentials 5b. GRANT NUMBER W81XWH-10-1-0404

  18. Signalling properties of identified deep cerebellar nuclear neurons related to eye and head movements in the alert cat.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gruart, A; Delgado-García, J M

    1994-07-01

    1. The spike activity of deep cerebellar nuclear neurons was recorded in the alert cat during spontaneous and during vestibularly and visually induced eye movements. 2. Neurons were classified according to their location in the nuclei, their antidromic activation from projection sites, their sensitivity to eye position and velocity during spontaneous eye movements, and their responses to vestibular and optokinetic stimuli. 3. Type I EPV (eye position and velocity) neurons were located mainly in the posterior part of the fastigial nucleus and activated antidromically almost exclusively from the medial longitudinal fasciculus close to the oculomotor complex. These neurons, reported here for the first time, increased their firing rate during saccades and eye fixations towards the contralateral hemifield. Their position sensitivity to eye fixations in the horizontal plane was 5.3 +/- 2.6 spikes s-1 deg-1 (mean +/- S.D.). Eye velocity sensitivity during horizontal saccades was 0.71 +/- 0.52 spikes s-1 deg-1 s-1. Variability of their firing rate during a given eye fixation was higher than that shown by abducens motoneurons. 4. Type I EPV neurons increased their firing rate during ipsilateral head rotations at 0.5 Hz with a mean phase lead over eye position of 95.3 +/- 9.5 deg. They were also activated by contralateral optokinetic stimulation at 30 deg s-1. Their sensitivity to eye position and velocity in the horizontal plane during vestibular and optokinetic stimuli yielded values similar to those obtained for spontaneous eye movements. 5. Type II neurons were located in both fastigial and dentate nuclei and were activated antidromically from the restiform body, the medial longitudinal fasciculus close to the oculomotor complex, the red nucleus and the pontine nuclei. Type II neurons were not related to spontaneous eye movements. These neurons increased their firing rate in response to contralateral head rotation and during ipsilateral optokinetic stimulation, and

  19. An eye movement based reading intervention in lexical and segmental readers with acquired dyslexia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ablinger, Irene; von Heyden, Kerstin; Vorstius, Christian; Halm, Katja; Huber, Walter; Radach, Ralph

    2014-01-01

    Due to their brain damage, aphasic patients with acquired dyslexia often rely to a greater extent on lexical or segmental reading procedures. Thus, therapy intervention is mostly targeted on the more impaired reading strategy. In the present work we introduce a novel therapy approach based on real-time measurement of patients' eye movements as they attempt to read words. More specifically, an eye movement contingent technique of stepwise letter de-masking was used to support sequential reading, whereas fixation-dependent initial masking of non-central letters stimulated a lexical (parallel) reading strategy. Four lexical and four segmental readers with acquired central dyslexia received our intensive reading intervention. All participants showed remarkable improvements as evident in reduced total reading time, a reduced number of fixations per word and improved reading accuracy. Both types of intervention led to item-specific training effects in all subjects. A generalisation to untrained items was only found in segmental readers after the lexical training. Eye movement analyses were also used to compare word processing before and after therapy, indicating that all patients, with one exclusion, maintained their preferred reading strategy. However, in several cases the balance between sequential and lexical processing became less extreme, indicating a more effective individual interplay of both word processing routes.

  20. Readers in Adult Basic Education: Component Skills, Eye Movements, and Fluency

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barnes, Adrienne E.; Kim, Young-Suk; Tighe, Elizabeth L.; Vorstius, Christian

    2017-01-01

    The present study explored the reading skills of a sample of 48 adults enrolled in a basic education program in northern Florida, United States. Previous research has reported on reading component skills for students in adult education settings, but little is known about eye movement patterns or their relation to reading skills for this…

  1. Eye movements reveal epistemic curiosity in human observers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baranes, Adrien; Oudeyer, Pierre-Yves; Gottlieb, Jacqueline

    2015-12-01

    Saccadic (rapid) eye movements are primary means by which humans and non-human primates sample visual information. However, while saccadic decisions are intensively investigated in instrumental contexts where saccades guide subsequent actions, it is largely unknown how they may be influenced by curiosity - the intrinsic desire to learn. While saccades are sensitive to visual novelty and visual surprise, no study has examined their relation to epistemic curiosity - interest in symbolic, semantic information. To investigate this question, we tracked the eye movements of human observers while they read trivia questions and, after a brief delay, were visually given the answer. We show that higher curiosity was associated with earlier anticipatory orienting of gaze toward the answer location without changes in other metrics of saccades or fixations, and that these influences were distinct from those produced by variations in confidence and surprise. Across subjects, the enhancement of anticipatory gaze was correlated with measures of trait curiosity from personality questionnaires. Finally, a machine learning algorithm could predict curiosity in a cross-subject manner, relying primarily on statistical features of the gaze position before the answer onset and independently of covariations in confidence or surprise, suggesting potential practical applications for educational technologies, recommender systems and research in cognitive sciences. With this article, we provide full access to the annotated database allowing readers to reproduce the results. Epistemic curiosity produces specific effects on oculomotor anticipation that can be used to read out curiosity states. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  2. Eye structure and amphibious foraging in albatrosses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martin, G. R.

    1998-01-01

    Anterior eye structure and retinal visual fields were determined in grey-headed and black-browed albatrosses, Diomedea melanophris and D. chrysostoma (Procellariiformes, Diomedeidae), using keratometry and an ophthalmoscopic reflex technique. Results for the two species were very similar and indicate that the eyes are of an amphibious optical design suggesting that albatross vision is well suited to the visual pursuit of active prey both on and below the ocean surface. The corneas are relatively flat (radius ca. 14.5 mm) and hence of low absolute refractive power (ca. 23 dioptres). In air the binocular fields are relatively long (vertical extent ca. 70 degrees) and narrow (maximum width in the plane of the optic axes 26–32 degrees), a topography found in a range of bird species that employ visual guidance of bill position when foraging. The cyclopean fields measure approximately 270 degrees in the horizontal plane, but there is a 60 degrees blind sector above the head owing to the positioning of the eyes below the protruding supraorbital ridges. Upon immersion the monocular fields decrease in width such that the binocular fields are abolished. Anterior eye structure, and visual field topography in both air and water, show marked similarity with those of the Humboldt penguin.

  3. Fragmentation of Rapid Eye Movement and Nonrapid Eye Movement Sleep without Total Sleep Loss Impairs Hippocampus-Dependent Fear Memory Consolidation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Michael L; Katsuyama, Ângela M; Duge, Leanne S; Sriram, Chaitra; Krushelnytskyy, Mykhaylo; Kim, Jeansok J; de la Iglesia, Horacio O

    2016-11-01

    Sleep is important for consolidation of hippocampus-dependent memories. It is hypothesized that the temporal sequence of nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is critical for the weakening of nonadaptive memories and the subsequent transfer of memories temporarily stored in the hippocampus to more permanent memories in the neocortex. A great body of evidence supporting this hypothesis relies on behavioral, pharmacological, neural, and/or genetic manipulations that induce sleep deprivation or stage-specific sleep deprivation. We exploit an experimental model of circadian desynchrony in which intact animals are not deprived of any sleep stage but show fragmentation of REM and NREM sleep within nonfragmented sleep bouts. We test the hypothesis that the shortening of NREM and REM sleep durations post-training will impair memory consolidation irrespective of total sleep duration. When circadian-desynchronized animals are trained in a hippocampus-dependent contextual fear-conditioning task they show normal short-term memory but impaired long-term memory consolidation. This impairment in memory consolidation is positively associated with the post-training fragmentation of REM and NREM sleep but is not significantly associated with the fragmentation of total sleep or the total amount of delta activity. We also show that the sleep stage fragmentation resulting from circadian desynchrony has no effect on hippocampus-dependent spatial memory and no effect on hippocampus-independent cued fear-conditioning memory. Our findings in an intact animal model, in which sleep deprivation is not a confounding factor, support the hypothesis that the stereotypic sequence and duration of sleep stages play a specific role in long-term hippocampus-dependent fear memory consolidation. © 2016 Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC.

  4. Neuregulin-1 genotypes and eye movements in schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Haraldsson, H.M.; Ettinger, U.; Magnusdottir, B.B.

    2010-01-01

    Neuregulin-1 (NRG-1) is a putative susceptibility gene for schizophrenia but the neurocognitive processes that may involve NRG-1 in schizophrenia are unknown. Deficits in antisaccade (AS) and smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) are promising endophenotypes, which may be associated with brain...... dysfunctions underlying the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations of NRG-1 genotypes with AS and SPEM in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. Patients (N = 113) and controls (N = 106) were genotyped for two NRG-1 single nucleotide polymorphisms...... findings of impaired AS and SPEM performance in schizophrenia patients (all P

  5. Neuroanatomical circuitry associated with exploratory eye movement in schizophrenia: a voxel-based morphometric study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Linlin Qiu

    Full Text Available Schizophrenic patients present abnormalities in a variety of eye movement tasks. Exploratory eye movement (EEM dysfunction appears to be particularly specific to schizophrenia. However, the underlying mechanisms of EEM dysfunction in schizophrenia are not clearly understood. To assess the potential neuroanatomical substrates of EEM, we recorded EEM performance and conducted a voxel-based morphometric analysis of gray matter in 33 schizophrenic patients and 29 well matched healthy controls. In schizophrenic patients, decreased responsive search score (RSS and widespread gray matter density (GMD reductions were observed. Moreover, the RSS was positively correlated with GMD in distributed brain regions in schizophrenic patients. Furthermore, in schizophrenic patients, some brain regions with neuroanatomical deficits overlapped with some ones associated with RSS. These brain regions constituted an occipito-tempro-frontal circuitry involved in visual information processing and eye movement control, including the left calcarine cortex [Brodmann area (BA 17], the left cuneus (BA 18, the left superior occipital cortex (BA 18/19, the left superior frontal gyrus (BA 6, the left cerebellum, the right lingual cortex (BA 17/18, the right middle occipital cortex (BA19, the right inferior temporal cortex (BA 37, the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 46 and bilateral precentral gyri (BA 6 extending to the frontal eye fields (FEF, BA 8. To our knowledge, we firstly reported empirical evidence that gray matter loss in the occipito-tempro-frontal neuroanatomical circuitry of visual processing system was associated with EEM performance in schizophrenia, which may be helpful for the future effort to reveal the underlying neural mechanisms for EEM disturbances in schizophrenia.

  6. Eye movements as an index of pathologist visual expertise: a pilot study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tad T Brunyé

    Full Text Available A pilot study examined the extent to which eye movements occurring during interpretation of digitized breast biopsy whole slide images (WSI can distinguish novice interpreters from experts, informing assessments of competency progression during training and across the physician-learning continuum. A pathologist with fellowship training in breast pathology interpreted digital WSI of breast tissue and marked the region of highest diagnostic relevance (dROI. These same images were then evaluated using computer vision techniques to identify visually salient regions of interest (vROI without diagnostic relevance. A non-invasive eye tracking system recorded pathologists' (N = 7 visual behavior during image interpretation, and we measured differential viewing of vROIs versus dROIs according to their level of expertise. Pathologists with relatively low expertise in interpreting breast pathology were more likely to fixate on, and subsequently return to, diagnostically irrelevant vROIs relative to experts. Repeatedly fixating on the distracting vROI showed limited value in predicting diagnostic failure. These preliminary results suggest that eye movements occurring during digital slide interpretation can characterize expertise development by demonstrating differential attraction to diagnostically relevant versus visually distracting image regions. These results carry both theoretical implications and potential for monitoring and evaluating student progress and providing automated feedback and scanning guidance in educational settings.

  7. Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Eye Movements as Indicators of Representational Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    1984-09-01

    Elizabeth A. Beck, "Test of the Eye Movement Hypothesis of Neurolinguistic Programing : A Rebuttal of Conclu- sions," Perceptual and Motor Skills, 58: 175...Meta Publications, 1980. 64 .. .] .! S ~ ~ ~ ~ 1 - ----. 14. Maron, Davida, " Neurolinguistic Programming : The Answer to Change? Training and Development... Neurolinguistic Programming ," Perceptual and Motor Skills, 51: 230 (April 1980). 65 VITA Captain William H. Moore was born on 22 October 1949. He

  8. The eye movement measure of memory and its relationship with explicit measures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Hsiang-Chun; Lee, Yuh-shiow

    2015-05-01

    This study examined whether the eye movement can be used to measure memory of past events and its relationship with the explicit measures. In Experiment 1, after studying a list of Chinese characters, the participants received a recognition memory test. For each trial the participants had to indicate, among one studied character and two nonstudied homonyms, which character they had studied. Participants' eye movements were monitored while they viewed the three-character test display. Both the time-course and response-locked measures showed that participants viewed the studied character longer than the nonstudied character regardless of their explicit response. Experiment 2 used a wagering task to assess participants' conscious awareness and found that wagering points predicted viewing time for the target better than the recognition accuracy did. These findings suggest that the effect of memory on viewing time occurs automatically and is weakly associated with subsequent conscious awareness of the studied event. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  9. Traumatic 6th Nerve Palsy Managed with Medial Rectus Recession ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    in left eye in primary gaze [Figure 1]. All movements of left eye were restricted in all directions of gaze except ... improvement of abduction, and larger field of binocular ... and inferior rectus lateral 2/3 near lateral rectus tendon insertion.

  10. An Eye-Movement Study of relational Memory in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ring, Melanie; Bowler, Dermot M; Gaigg, Sebastian B

    2017-10-01

    Persons with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) demonstrate good memory for single items but difficulties remembering contextual information related to these items. Recently, we found compromised explicit but intact implicit retrieval of object-location information in ASD (Ring et al. Autism Res 8(5):609-619, 2015). Eye-movement data collected from a sub-sample of the participants are the focus of the current paper. At encoding, trial-by-trial viewing durations predicted subsequent retrieval success only in typically developing (TD) participants. During retrieval, TD compared to ASD participants looked significantly longer at previously studied object-locations compared to alternative locations. These findings extend similar observations recently reported by Cooper et al. (Cognition 159:127-138, 2017a) and demonstrate that eye-movement data can shed important light on the source and nature of relational memory difficulties in ASD.

  11. Low dimensional temporal organization of spontaneous eye blinks in adults with developmental disabilities and stereotyped movement disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Mei-Hua; Bodfish, James W; Lewis, Mark H; Newell, Karl M

    2010-01-01

    This study investigated the mean rate and time-dependent sequential organization of spontaneous eye blinks in adults with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) and individuals from this group who were additionally categorized with stereotypic movement disorder (IDD+SMD). The mean blink rate was lower in the IDD+SMD group than the IDD group and both of these groups had a lower blink rate than a contrast group of healthy adults. In the IDD group the n to n+1 sequential organization over time of the eye-blink durations showed a stronger compensatory organization than the contrast group suggesting decreased complexity/dimensionality of eye-blink behavior. Very low blink rate (and thus insufficient time series data) precluded analysis of time-dependent sequential properties in the IDD+SMD group. These findings support the hypothesis that both IDD and SMD are associated with a reduction in the dimension and adaptability of movement behavior and that this may serve as a risk factor for the expression of abnormal movements.

  12. Neuter is not Common in Dutch : Eye Movements Reveal Asymmetrical Gender Processing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Loerts, Hanneke; Wieling, Martijn; Schmid, Monika S.

    2013-01-01

    Native speakers of languages with transparent gender systems can use gender cues to anticipate upcoming words. To examine whether this also holds true for a non-transparent two-way gender system, i.e. Dutch, eye movements were monitored as participants followed spoken instructions to click on one of

  13. Receptive fields for smooth pursuit eye movements and motion perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Debono, Kurt; Schütz, Alexander C; Spering, Miriam; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

    2010-12-01

    Humans use smooth pursuit eye movements to track moving objects of interest. In order to track an object accurately, motion signals from the target have to be integrated and segmented from motion signals in the visual context. Most studies on pursuit eye movements used small visual targets against a featureless background, disregarding the requirements of our natural visual environment. Here, we tested the ability of the pursuit and the perceptual system to integrate motion signals across larger areas of the visual field. Stimuli were random-dot kinematograms containing a horizontal motion signal, which was perturbed by a spatially localized, peripheral motion signal. Perturbations appeared in a gaze-contingent coordinate system and had a different direction than the main motion including a vertical component. We measured pursuit and perceptual direction discrimination decisions and found that both steady-state pursuit and perception were influenced most by perturbation angles close to that of the main motion signal and only in regions close to the center of gaze. The narrow direction bandwidth (26 angular degrees full width at half height) and small spatial extent (8 degrees of visual angle standard deviation) correspond closely to tuning parameters of neurons in the middle temporal area (MT). Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  14. Tracing attention and the activation flow in spoken word planning using eye-movements

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Roelofs, A.P.A.

    2008-01-01

    The flow of activation from concepts to phonological forms within the word production system was examined in 3 experiments. In Experiment 1, participants named pictures while ignoring superimposed distractor pictures that were semantically related, phonologically related, or unrelated. Eye movements

  15. Investigating the Process of Process Modeling with Eye Movement Analysis

    OpenAIRE

    Pinggera, Jakob; Furtner, Marco; Martini, Markus; Sachse, Pierre; Reiter, Katharina; Zugal, Stefan; Weber, Barbara

    2015-01-01

    Research on quality issues of business process models has recently begun to explore the process of creating process models by analyzing the modeler's interactions with the modeling environment. In this paper we aim to complement previous insights on the modeler's modeling behavior with data gathered by tracking the modeler's eye movements when engaged in the act of modeling. We present preliminary results and outline directions for future research to triangulate toward a more comprehensive un...

  16. The selective disruption of spatial working memory by eye movements

    OpenAIRE

    Postle, Bradley R.; Idzikowski, Christopher; Sala, Sergio Della; Logie, Robert H.; Baddeley, Alan D.

    2006-01-01

    In the late 1970s/early 1980s, Baddeley and colleagues conducted a series of experiments investigating the role of eye movements in visual working memory. Although only described briefly in a book (Baddeley, 1986), these studies have influenced a remarkable number of empirical and theoretical developments in fields ranging from experimental psychology to human neuropsychology to nonhuman primate electrophysiology. This paper presents, in full detail, three critical studies from this series, t...

  17. Eye Movements when Looking at Unusual/Weird Scenes: Are There Cultural Differences?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rayner, Keith; Castelhano, Monica S.; Yang, Jinmian

    2009-01-01

    Recent studies have suggested that eye movement patterns while viewing scenes differ for people from different cultural backgrounds and that these differences in how scenes are viewed are due to differences in the prioritization of information (background or foreground). The current study examined whether there are cultural differences in how…

  18. The role of interword spacing in reading Japanese: an eye movement study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sainio, Miia; Hyönä, Jukka; Bingushi, Kazuo; Bertram, Raymond

    2007-09-01

    The present study investigated the role of interword spacing in a naturally unspaced language, Japanese. Eye movements were registered of native Japanese readers reading pure Hiragana (syllabic) and mixed Kanji-Hiragana (ideographic and syllabic) text in spaced and unspaced conditions. Interword spacing facilitated both word identification and eye guidance when reading syllabic script, but not when the script contained ideographic characters. We conclude that in reading Hiragana interword spacing serves as an effective segmentation cue. In contrast, spacing information in mixed Kanji-Hiragana text is redundant, since the visually salient Kanji characters serve as effective segmentation cues by themselves.

  19. Using eye movements as an index of implicit face recognition in autism spectrum disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hedley, Darren; Young, Robyn; Brewer, Neil

    2012-10-01

    Individuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) typically show impairment on face recognition tasks. Performance has usually been assessed using overt, explicit recognition tasks. Here, a complementary method involving eye tracking was used to examine implicit face recognition in participants with ASD and in an intelligence quotient-matched non-ASD control group. Differences in eye movement indices between target and foil faces were used as an indicator of implicit face recognition. Explicit face recognition was assessed using old-new discrimination and reaction time measures. Stimuli were faces of studied (target) or unfamiliar (foil) persons. Target images at test were either identical to the images presented at study or altered by changing the lighting, pose, or by masking with visual noise. Participants with ASD performed worse than controls on the explicit recognition task. Eye movement-based measures, however, indicated that implicit recognition may not be affected to the same degree as explicit recognition. Autism Res 2012, 5: 363-379. © 2012 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2012 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  20. Eye movement control in reading unspaced text: the case of the Japanese script.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kajii, N; Nazir, T A; Osaka, N

    2001-09-01

    The present study examines the landing-site distributions of the eyes during natural reading of Japanese script: a script that mixes three different writing systems (Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana) and that misses regular spacing between words. The results show a clear preference of the eyes to land at the beginning rather than the center of the word. In addition, it was found that the eyes land on Kanji characters more frequently than on Hiragana or Katakana characters. Further analysis for two- and three-character words indicated that the eye's landing-site distribution differs depending on type of the characters in the word: the eyes prefer to land at the word beginning only when the initial character of the word is a Kanji character. For pure Hiragana words, the proportion of initial fixations did not differ between character positions. Thus, as already indicated by Kambe (National Institute of Japanese Language Report 85 (1986) 29), the visual distinctiveness of the three Japanese scripts plays a role in guiding eye movements in reading Japanese.

  1. Ocular disconjugacy cannot be measured without establishing a solid spatial reference [v2; ref status: indexed, http://f1000r.es/5as

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jun Maruta

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available This correspondence points out a need for clarification concerning the methodology utilized in the study “Eye tracking detects disconjugate eye movements associated with structural traumatic brain injury and concussion”, recently published in Journal of Neurotrauma. The authors of the paper state that binocular eye movements were recorded using a single-camera video-oculography technique and that binocular disconjugate characteristics were analyzed without calibration of eye orientation. It is claimed that a variance-based disconjugacy metric was found to be sensitive to the severity of a concussive brain injury and to the status of recovery after the original injury. However, the reproducibility of the paper’s findings may be challenged simply by the paucity of details in the methodological description. More importantly, from the information supplied or cited in the paper, it is difficult to evaluate the validity of the potentially interesting conclusions of the paper.

  2. Eye movement analysis and cognitive processing: detecting indicators of conversion to Alzheimer’s disease

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pereira ML

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Marta LG Freitas Pereira, Marina von Zuben A Camargo, Ivan Aprahamian, Orestes V ForlenzaLaboratory of Neuroscience (LIM-27, Department and Institute of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, BrazilAbstract: A great amount of research has been developed around the early cognitive ­impairments that best predict the onset of Alzheimer’s disease (AD. Given that mild cognitive impairment (MCI is no longer considered to be an intermediate state between normal aging and AD, new paths have been traced to acquire further knowledge about this condition and its subtypes, and to determine which of them have a higher risk of conversion to AD. It is now known that other deficits besides episodic and semantic memory impairments may be present in the early stages of AD, such as visuospatial and executive function deficits. Furthermore, recent investigations have proven that the hippocampus and the medial temporal lobe structures are not only involved in memory functioning, but also in visual processes. These early changes in memory, visual, and executive processes may also be detected with the study of eye movement patterns in pathological conditions like MCI and AD. In the present review, we attempt to explore the existing literature concerning these patterns of oculomotor changes and how these changes are related to the early signs of AD. In particular, we argue that deficits in visual short-term memory, specifically in iconic memory, attention processes, and inhibitory control, may be found through the analysis of eye movement patterns, and we discuss how they might help to predict the progression from MCI to AD. We add that the study of eye movement patterns in these conditions, in combination with neuroimaging techniques and appropriate neuropsychological tasks based on rigorous concepts derived from cognitive psychology, may highlight the early presence of cognitive impairments in the course of the disease

  3. Research progress on the pathogenesis of rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder and neurodegenerative diseases

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hai-yang JIANG

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD is a sleep disorder characterized by the disappearance of muscle relaxation and enacting one's dreams during rapid eye movement (REM, with most of the dreams being violent or aggressive. Prevalence of RBD, based on population, is 0.38%-2.01%, but it becomes much higher in patients with neurodegenerative diseases, especially α - synucleinopathies. RBD may herald the emergence of α-synucleinopathies by decades, thus it may be used as an effective early marker of neurodegenerative diseases. In this review, we summarized the progress on the pathogenesis of RBD and its relationship with neurodegenerative diseases. DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1672-6731.2017.10.003

  4. Eye movement during recall reduces objective memory performance: An extended replication.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leer, Arne; Engelhard, Iris M; Lenaert, Bert; Struyf, Dieter; Vervliet, Bram; Hermans, Dirk

    2017-05-01

    Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder involves making eye movements (EMs) during recall of a traumatic image. Experimental studies have shown that the dual task decreases self-reported memory vividness and emotionality. However valuable, these data are prone to demand effects and little can be inferred about the mechanism(s) underlying the observed effects. The current research aimed to fill this lacuna by providing two objective tests of memory performance. Experiment I involved a stimulus discrimination task. Findings were that EM during stimulus recall not only reduces self-reported memory vividness, but also slows down reaction time in a task that requires participants to discriminate the stimulus from perceptually similar stimuli. Experiment II involved a fear conditioning paradigm. It was shown that EM during recall of a threatening stimulus intensifies fearful responding to a perceptually similar yet non-threat-related stimulus, as evidenced by increases in danger expectancies and skin conductance responses. The latter result was not corroborated by startle EMG data. Together, the findings suggest that the EM manipulation renders stimulus attributes less accessible for future recall. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Brief report: eye-movement patterns during an embedded figures test in children with ASD.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keehn, Brandon; Brenner, Laurie A; Ramos, Aurora I; Lincoln, Alan J; Marshall, Sandra P; Müller, Ralph-Axel

    2009-02-01

    The present study examined fixation frequency and duration during an Embedded Figures Test (EFT) in an effort to better understand the attentional and perceptual processes by which individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) achieve accelerated EFT performance. In particular, we aimed to elucidate differences in the patterns of eye-movement in ASD and typically developing (TD) children, thus providing evidence relevant to the competing theories of weak central coherence (WCC) and enhanced perceptual functioning. Consistent with prior EFT studies, we found accelerated response time (RT) in children with ASD. No group differences were seen for fixation frequency, but the ASD group made significantly shorter fixations compared to the TD group. Eye-movement results indicate that RT advantage in ASD is related to both WCC and enhanced perceptual functioning.

  6. Effectiveness of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy on Public Speaking Anxiety of University Students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jalil Aslani

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Background: Public speaking anxiety is a prominent problem in the college student population. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing on public speaking anxiety of college students. Materials and Methods: The design of research was quasi-experimental with pre-post test type, and control group. The sample consistent of 30 students with speech anxiety that selected base on available sampling and assigned randomly in experimental (N=15 and control (N=15 groups. The experimental group was treated with EMDR therapy for 7 sessions. In order to collect the data, Paul’s personal report of confidence as a speaker, S-R inventory of anxiousness was used. To analyze the data, SPSS-19 software and covariance analysis were used. Results: The multivariate analysis of covariance showed that the eye movement desensitization and reprocessing reducing public speaking anxiety. The one-way analysis of covariance for each variable shows there are significant differences in confidence of speaker (p=0.001 and physiological symptoms of speech anxiety (p=0.001 at the two groups. Conclusion: These results suggest that treatment of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing is effective on reducing physiological symptoms of speech anxiety and increasing the speaker’s confidence.

  7. Scene perception and memory revealed by eye movements and receiver-operating characteristic analyses: Does a cultural difference truly exist?

    OpenAIRE

    Evans, Kris; Rotello, Caren M.; Li, Xingshan; Rayner, Keith

    2008-01-01

    Cultural differences have been observed in scene perception and memory: Chinese participants purportedly attend to the background information more than did American participants. We investigated the influence of culture by recording eye movements during scene perception and while participants made recognition memory judgements. Real-world pictures with a focal object on a background were shown to both American and Chinese participants while their eye movements were recorded. Later, memory for...

  8. The influence of contextual diversity on eye movements in reading

    OpenAIRE

    Plummer, Patrick; Perea, Manuel; Rayner, Keith

    2013-01-01

    Recent research has shown contextual diversity (i.e., the number of passages in which a given word appears) to be a reliable predictor of word processing difficulty. It has also been demonstrated that word-frequency has little or no effect on word recognition speed when accounting for contextual diversity in isolated word processing tasks. An eye-movement experiment was conducted wherein the effects of word-frequency and contextual diversity were directly contrasted in a normal sentence readi...

  9. Eye movement instructions modulate motion illusion and body sway with Op Art.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kapoula, Zoï; Lang, Alexandre; Vernet, Marine; Locher, Paul

    2015-01-01

    Op Art generates illusory visual motion. It has been proposed that eye movements participate in such illusion. This study examined the effect of eye movement instructions (fixation vs. free exploration) on the sensation of motion as well as the body sway of subjects viewing Op Art paintings. Twenty-eight healthy adults in orthostatic stance were successively exposed to three visual stimuli consisting of one figure representing a cross (baseline condition) and two Op Art paintings providing sense of motion in depth-Bridget Riley's Movements in Squares and Akiyoshi Kitaoka's Rollers. Before their exposure to the Op Art images, participants were instructed either to fixate at the center of the image (fixation condition) or to explore the artwork (free viewing condition). Posture was measured for 30 s per condition using a body fixed sensor (accelerometer). The major finding of this study is that the two Op Art paintings induced a larger antero-posterior body sway both in terms of speed and displacement and an increased motion illusion in the free viewing condition as compared to the fixation condition. For body sway, this effect was significant for the Riley painting, while for motion illusion this effect was significant for Kitaoka's image. These results are attributed to macro-saccades presumably occurring under free viewing instructions, and most likely to the small vergence drifts during fixations following the saccades; such movements in interaction with visual properties of each image would increase either the illusory motion sensation or the antero-posterior body sway.

  10. The Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Procedure Prevents Defensive Processing in Health Persuasion

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dijkstra, Arie; van Asten, Regine

    2014-01-01

    In the present study, the method of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is studied to understand and prevent defensive reactions with regard to a negatively framed message advocating fruit and vegetable consumption. EMDR has been shown to tax the working memory. Participants from a

  11. Immaturity of the Oculomotor Saccade and Vergence Interaction in Dyslexic Children: Evidence from a Reading and Visual Search Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bucci, Maria Pia; Nassibi, Naziha; Gerard, Christophe-Loic; Bui-Quoc, Emmanuel; Seassau, Magali

    2012-01-01

    Studies comparing binocular eye movements during reading and visual search in dyslexic children are, at our knowledge, inexistent. In the present study we examined ocular motor characteristics in dyslexic children versus two groups of non dyslexic children with chronological/reading age-matched. Binocular eye movements were recorded by an infrared system (mobileEBT®, e(ye)BRAIN) in twelve dyslexic children (mean age 11 years old) and a group of chronological age-matched (N = 9) and reading age-matched (N = 10) non dyslexic children. Two visual tasks were used: text reading and visual search. Independently of the task, the ocular motor behavior in dyslexic children is similar to those reported in reading age-matched non dyslexic children: many and longer fixations as well as poor quality of binocular coordination during and after the saccades. In contrast, chronological age-matched non dyslexic children showed a small number of fixations and short duration of fixations in reading task with respect to visual search task; furthermore their saccades were well yoked in both tasks. The atypical eye movement's patterns observed in dyslexic children suggest a deficiency in the visual attentional processing as well as an immaturity of the ocular motor saccade and vergence systems interaction. PMID:22438934

  12. Macular degeneration affects eye movement behaviour during visual search

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stefan eVan Der Stigchel

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Patients with a scotoma in their central vision (e.g. due to macular degeneration, MD commonly adopt a strategy to direct the eyes such that the image falls onto a peripheral location on the retina. This location is referred to as the preferred retinal locus (PRL. Although previous research has investigated the characteristics of this PRL, it is unclear whether eye movement metrics are modulated by peripheral viewing with a PRL as measured during a visual search paradigm. To this end, we tested four MD patients in a visual search paradigm and contrasted their performance with a healthy control group and a healthy control group performing the same experiment with a simulated scotoma. The experiment contained two conditions. In the first condition the target was an unfilled circle hidden among c-shaped distractors (serial condition and in the second condition the target was a filled circle (pop-out condition. Saccadic search latencies for the MD group were significantly longer in both conditions compared to both control groups. Results of a subsequent experiment indicated that this difference between the MD and the control groups could not be explained by a difference in target selection sensitivity. Furthermore, search behaviour of MD patients was associated with saccades with smaller amplitudes towards the scotoma, an increased intersaccadic interval and an increased number of eye movements necessary to locate the target. Some of these characteristics, such as the increased intersaccadic interval, were also observed in the simulation group, which indicate that these characteristics are related to the peripheral viewing itself. We suggest that the combination of the central scotoma and peripheral viewing can explain the altered search behaviour and no behavioural evidence was found for a possible reorganization of the visual system associated with the use of a PRL. Thus the switch from a fovea-based to a PRL-based reference frame impairs search

  13. Can Operator's Thought Be Inferred from Eye Movement Data?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ha, Jun Su; Seong, Poong Hyun

    2010-01-01

    Correct situation awareness (SA) has been considered a crucial key to improving performance and reducing error in NPPs. There are a lot of information sources that should be monitored in nuclear power plants (NPPs), but operators have only limited capacity of attention and memory. Operators in NPPs selectively attend to important information sources to effectively develop SA when an abnormal or accidental situation occurs. Selective attention to important information sources is continued while maintaining SA as well. The authors have developed measures of attentional resource effectiveness in information searching such as FIR (Fixation to Importance Ratio) and SAE (Selective Attention Effectiveness) which represent how effectively an operator attends to important information sources. The FIR is the ratio of attentional resources (i.e. the number and the duration of eye fixations) spent on an information source to the importance of the information source as follows: Theoretically, the SAE should approach to zero for the best effectiveness. The underlying principle of the measures is that information sources should be selectively attended to according to their informational importance. The importance of information sources depends on the state of a NPP. For example, the importance of the pressurizer level for loss of coolant accident (LOCA) is different from that for steam line break (SLB). Hence, sets of importance for information sources should be evaluated for all possible events. The FIR and the SAE have also been used as performance measures in a HMI evaluation method named 'DEMIS (Difficulty Evaluation Method in Information Searching). In this study, Operator's thought is inferred with the eye movement data during complex diagnostic tasks in NPPs. SAEs are calculated with the eye movement data for all possible events (e.g., accident, incident, or transient) in NPPs. Inference of operator thought is made by analyzing the calculated SAEs. Theoretically, the event

  14. Does Visual Attention Span Relate to Eye Movements during Reading and Copying?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bosse, Marie-Line; Kandel, Sonia; Prado, Chloé; Valdois, Sylviane

    2014-01-01

    This research investigated whether text reading and copying involve visual attention-processing skills. Children in grades 3 and 5 read and copied the same text. We measured eye movements while reading and the number of gaze lifts (GL) during copying. The children were also administered letter report tasks that constitute an estimation of the…

  15. Characteristics of rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder in narcolepsy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jennum, Poul Jørgen; Frandsen, Rune Asger Vestergaard; Knudsen, Stine

    2013-01-01

    Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is characterized by dream-enacting behavior and impaired motor inhibition during REM sleep (REM sleep without atonia, RSWA). RBD is commonly associated with Parkinsonian disorders, but is also reported in narcolepsy. Most patients...... of hypocretin deficiency. Thus, hypocretin deficiency is linked to the two major disturbances of REM sleep motor regulation in narcolepsy: RBD and cataplexy. Moreover, it is likely that hypocretin deficiency independently predicts periodic limb movements in REM and NREM sleep, probably via involvement...... of the dopaminergic system. This supports the hypothesis that an impaired hypocretin system causes general instability of motor regulation during wakefulness, REM and NREM sleep in human narcolepsy. We propose that hypocretin neurons are centrally involved in motor tone control during wakefulness and sleep in humans...

  16. Abnormal Eye Movements in Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grant, Michael P.; Cohen, Mark; Petersen, Robert B.; Halmagyi, G. Michael; McDougall, Alan; Tusa, Ronald J.; Leigh, R. John

    1993-01-01

    We report 3 patients with autopsy-proven Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease who, early in their course, developed abnormal eye movements that included periodic alternating nystagmus and slow vertical saccades. These findings suggested involvement of the cerebellar nodulus and uvula, and the brainstem reticular formation, respectively. Cerebellar ataxia was also an early manifestation and, in one patient, a frontal lobe brain biopsy was normal at a time when ocular motor and cerebellar signs were conspicuous. As the disease progressed, all saccades and quick phases of nystagmus were lost, but periodic alternating gaze deviation persisted. At autopsy, 2 of the 3 patients had pronounced involvement of the cerebellum, especially of the midline structures. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease should be considered in patients with subacute progressive neurological disease when cognitive changes are overshadowed by ocular motor findings or ataxia.

  17. Visually induced eye movements in Wallenberg's syndrome

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kanayama, R.; Nakamura, T.; Ohki, M.; Kimura, Y.; Koike, Y.; Kato, I.

    1991-01-01

    Eighteen patients with Wallenberg's syndrome were investigated concerning visually induced eye movements. All results were analysed quantitatively using a computer. In 16 out of 18 patients, OKN slow-phase velocities were impaired, in the remaining 2 patients they were normal. All patients showed reduced visual suppression of caloric nystagmus during the slow-phase of nystagmus toward the lesion side, except 3 patients who showed normal visual suppression in both directions. CT scan failed to detect either the brainstem or the cerebellar lesions in any cases, but MRI performed on the most recent cases demonstrated the infractions clearly. These findings suggest that infractions are localized in the medulla in the patients of group A, but extend to the cerebellum as well as to the medulla in patients of group B. (au)

  18. Effects of handedness & saccadic bilateral eye movements on the specificity of past autobiographical memory & episodic future thinking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parker, Andrew; Parkin, Adam; Dagnall, Neil

    2017-06-01

    The present research investigated the effects of personal handedness and saccadic eye movements on the specificity of past autobiographical memory and episodic future thinking. Handedness and saccadic eye movements have been hypothesised to share a common functional basis in that both influence cognition through hemispheric interaction. The technique used to elicit autobiographical memory and episodic future thought involved a cued sentence completion procedure that allowed for the production of memories spanning the highly specific to the very general. Experiment 1 found that mixed-handed (vs. right handed) individuals generated more specific past autobiographical memories, but equivalent numbers of specific future predictions. Experiment 2 demonstrated that following 30s of bilateral (horizontal) saccades, more specific cognitions about both the past and future were generated. These findings extend previous research by showing that more distinct and episodic-like information pertaining to the self can be elicited by either mixed-handedness or eye movements. The results are discussed in relation to hemispheric interaction and top-down influences in the control of memory retrieval. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. Neuroimaging of amblyopia and binocular vision: a review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Joly, Olivier; Frankó, Edit

    2014-01-01

    Amblyopia is a cerebral visual impairment considered to derive from abnormal visual experience (e.g., strabismus, anisometropia). Amblyopia, first considered as a monocular disorder, is now often seen as a primarily binocular disorder resulting in more and more studies examining the binocular deficits in the patients. The neural mechanisms of amblyopia are not completely understood even though they have been investigated with electrophysiological recordings in animal models and more recently with neuroimaging techniques in humans. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge about the brain regions that underlie the visual deficits associated with amblyopia with a focus on binocular vision using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The first studies focused on abnormal responses in the primary and secondary visual areas whereas recent evidence shows that there are also deficits at higher levels of the visual pathways within the parieto-occipital and temporal cortices. These higher level areas are part of the cortical network involved in 3D vision from binocular cues. Therefore, reduced responses in these areas could be related to the impaired binocular vision in amblyopic patients. Promising new binocular treatments might at least partially correct the activation in these areas. Future neuroimaging experiments could help to characterize the brain response changes associated with these treatments and help devise them.

  20. Effects of Handedness and Saccadic Bilateral Eye Movements on Components of Autobiographical Recollection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parker, Andrew; Dagnall, Neil

    2010-01-01

    The effects of handedness and saccadic bilateral eye movements on autobiographical recollection were investigated. Recall of autobiographical memories was cued by the use of neutral and emotional words. Autobiographical recollection was assessed by the autobiographical memory questionnaire. Experiment 1 found that mixed-handed (vs. right handed)…

  1. Tracing Attention and the Activation Flow of Spoken Word Planning Using Eye Movements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roelofs, Ardi

    2008-01-01

    The flow of activation from concepts to phonological forms within the word production system was examined in 3 experiments. In Experiment 1, participants named pictures while ignoring superimposed distractor pictures that were semantically related, phonologically related, or unrelated. Eye movements and naming latencies were recorded. The…

  2. Does partial occlusion promote normal binocular function?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Jingrong; Thompson, Benjamin; Ding, Zhaofeng; Chan, Lily Y L; Chen, Xiang; Yu, Minbin; Deng, Daming; Hess, Robert F

    2012-10-03

    There is growing evidence that abnormal binocular interactions play a key role in the amblyopia syndrome and represent a viable target for treatment interventions. In this context the use of partial occlusion using optical devices such as Bangerter filters as an alternative to complete occlusion is of particular interest. The aims of this study were to understand why Bangerter filters do not result in improved binocular outcomes compared to complete occlusion, and to compare the effects of Bangerter filters, optical blur and neutral density (ND) filters on normal binocular function. The effects of four strengths of Bangerter filters (0.8, 0.6, 0.4, 0.2) on letter and vernier acuity, contrast sensitivity, stereoacuity, and interocular suppression were measured in 21 observers with normal vision. In a subset of 14 observers, the partial occlusion effects of Bangerter filters, ND filters and plus lenses on stereopsis and interocular suppression were compared. Bangerter filters did not have graded effect on vision and induced significant disruption to binocular function. This disruption was greater than that of monocular defocus but weaker than that of ND filters. The effect of the Bangerter filters on stereopsis was more pronounced than their effect on monocular acuity, and the induced monocular acuity deficits did not predict the induced deficits in stereopsis. Bangerter filters appear to be particularly disruptive to binocular function. Other interventions, such as optical defocus and those employing computer generated dichoptic stimulus presentation, may be more appropriate than partial occlusion for targeting binocular function during amblyopia treatment.

  3. Eye Tracking in the Cockpit: a Review of the Relationships between Eye Movements and the Aviators Cognitive State

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-12-01

    proportional dwell time OTW in order to assess the impact of novel cockpit instruments on situational awareness in nearby airspace (Cote, Krueger, & Simmons...frequency. In particular, Spady (1978) examined eye movements during simulated landing approach under instrument flight rules ( IFR ). Simulated turbulence...al. (2007) found that NNI varied across phases of simulated IFR flight, showing the least random (most clustered) distribution of fixations during

  4. Responses of Purkinje cells in the oculomotor vermis of monkeys during smooth pursuit eye movements and saccades: comparison with floccular complex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Raghavan, Ramanujan T; Lisberger, Stephen G

    2017-08-01

    We recorded the responses of Purkinje cells in the oculomotor vermis during smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements. Our goal was to characterize the responses in the vermis using approaches that would allow direct comparisons with responses of Purkinje cells in another cerebellar area for pursuit, the floccular complex. Simple-spike firing of vermis Purkinje cells is direction selective during both pursuit and saccades, but the preferred directions are sufficiently independent so that downstream circuits could decode signals to drive pursuit and saccades separately. Complex spikes also were direction selective during pursuit, and almost all Purkinje cells showed a peak in the probability of complex spikes during the initiation of pursuit in at least one direction. Unlike the floccular complex, the preferred directions for simple spikes and complex spikes were not opposite. The kinematics of smooth eye movement described the simple-spike responses of vermis Purkinje cells well. Sensitivities were similar to those in the floccular complex for eye position and considerably lower for eye velocity and acceleration. The kinematic relations were quite different for saccades vs. pursuit, supporting the idea that the contributions from the vermis to each kind of movement could contribute independently in downstream areas. Finally, neither the complex-spike nor the simple-spike responses of vermis Purkinje cells were appropriate to support direction learning in pursuit. Complex spikes were not triggered reliably by an instructive change in target direction; simple-spike responses showed very small amounts of learning. We conclude that the vermis plays a different role in pursuit eye movements compared with the floccular complex. NEW & NOTEWORTHY The midline oculomotor cerebellum plays a different role in smooth pursuit eye movements compared with the lateral, floccular complex and appears to be much less involved in direction learning in pursuit. The output from the

  5. Isolating Discriminant Neural Activity in the Presence of Eye Movements and Concurrent Task Demands

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jon Touryan

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available A growing number of studies use the combination of eye-tracking and electroencephalographic (EEG measures to explore the neural processes that underlie visual perception. In these studies, fixation-related potentials (FRPs are commonly used to quantify early and late stages of visual processing that follow the onset of each fixation. However, FRPs reflect a mixture of bottom-up (sensory-driven and top-down (goal-directed processes, in addition to eye movement artifacts and unrelated neural activity. At present there is little consensus on how to separate this evoked response into its constituent elements. In this study we sought to isolate the neural sources of target detection in the presence of eye movements and over a range of concurrent task demands. Here, participants were asked to identify visual targets (Ts amongst a grid of distractor stimuli (Ls, while simultaneously performing an auditory N-back task. To identify the discriminant activity, we used independent components analysis (ICA for the separation of EEG into neural and non-neural sources. We then further separated the neural sources, using a modified measure-projection approach, into six regions of interest (ROIs: occipital, fusiform, temporal, parietal, cingulate, and frontal cortices. Using activity from these ROIs, we identified target from non-target fixations in all participants at a level similar to other state-of-the-art classification techniques. Importantly, we isolated the time course and spectral features of this discriminant activity in each ROI. In addition, we were able to quantify the effect of cognitive load on both fixation-locked potential and classification performance across regions. Together, our results show the utility of a measure-projection approach for separating task-relevant neural activity into meaningful ROIs within more complex contexts that include eye movements.

  6. Frontal Eye Field, Where Art Thou? Anatomy, function and non-invasive manipulation of frontal regions involved in eye movements and associated cognitive operations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marine eVernet

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available The planning, control and execution of eye movements in 3D space relies on a distributed system of cortical and subcortical brain regions. Within this network, the Eye Fields have been described in animals as cortical regions in which electrical stimulation is able to trigger eye movements and influence their latency or accuracy. This review will focus on the Frontal Eye Field (FEF a hub region located in Humans in the vicinity of the pre-central sulcus and the dorsal-most portion of the superior frontal sulcus. The straightforward localization of the FEF through electrical stimulation in animals is difficult to translate to the healthy human brain, particularly with non-invasive neuroimaging techniques. Hence, in the first part of this review, we will describe attempts made to characterize the anatomical localization of this area in the human brain. The outcome of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI, Magneto-encephalography (MEG and particularly, non-invasive mapping methods such a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS will be described and the variability of FEF localization across individuals and mapping techniques will be discussed. In the second part of this review, we will address the role of the FEF. We will explore its involvement both in the physiology of fixation, saccade, pursuit and vergence movements and in associated cognitive processes such as attentional orienting, visual awareness and perceptual modulation. Finally in the third part, we will review recent evidence suggesting the high level of malleability and plasticity of these regions and associated networks to non-invasive stimulation. The exploratory, diagnostic and therapeutic interest of such interventions for the modulation and improvement of perception in 3D space will be discussed.

  7. The eye movements of dyslexic children during reading and visual search: impact of the visual attention span.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prado, Chloé; Dubois, Matthieu; Valdois, Sylviane

    2007-09-01

    The eye movements of 14 French dyslexic children having a VA span reduction and 14 normal readers were compared in two tasks of visual search and text reading. The dyslexic participants made a higher number of rightward fixations in reading only. They simultaneously processed the same low number of letters in both tasks whereas normal readers processed far more letters in reading. Importantly, the children's VA span abilities related to the number of letters simultaneously processed in reading. The atypical eye movements of some dyslexic readers in reading thus appear to reflect difficulties to increase their VA span according to the task request.

  8. Developmental visual perception deficits with no indications of prosopagnosia in a child with abnormal eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilaie-Dotan, Sharon; Doron, Ravid

    2017-06-01

    Visual categories are associated with eccentricity biases in high-order visual cortex: Faces and reading with foveally-biased regions, while common objects and space with mid- and peripherally-biased regions. As face perception and reading are among the most challenging human visual skills, and are often regarded as the peak achievements of a distributed neural network supporting common objects perception, it is unclear why objects, which also rely on foveal vision to be processed, are associated with mid-peripheral rather than with a foveal bias. Here, we studied BN, a 9 y.o. boy who has normal basic-level vision, abnormal (limited) oculomotor pursuit and saccades, and shows developmental object and contour integration deficits but with no indication of prosopagnosia. Although we cannot infer causation from the data presented here, we suggest that normal pursuit and saccades could be critical for the development of contour integration and object perception. While faces and perhaps reading, when fixated upon, take up a small portion of central visual field and require only small eye movements to be properly processed, common objects typically prevail in mid-peripheral visual field and rely on longer-distance voluntary eye movements as saccades to be brought to fixation. While retinal information feeds into early visual cortex in an eccentricity orderly manner, we hypothesize that propagation of non-foveal information to mid and high-order visual cortex critically relies on circuitry involving eye movements. Limited or atypical eye movements, as in the case of BN, may hinder normal information flow to mid-eccentricity biased high-order visual cortex, adversely affecting its development and consequently inducing visual perceptual deficits predominantly for categories associated with these regions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Eye movements and manual interception of ballistic trajectories: effects of law of motion perturbations and occlusions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Delle Monache, Sergio; Lacquaniti, Francesco; Bosco, Gianfranco

    2015-02-01

    Manual interceptions are known to depend critically on integration of visual feedback information and experience-based predictions of the interceptive event. Within this framework, coupling between gaze and limb movements might also contribute to the interceptive outcome, since eye movements afford acquisition of high-resolution visual information. We investigated this issue by analyzing subjects' head-fixed oculomotor behavior during manual interceptions. Subjects moved a mouse cursor to intercept computer-generated ballistic trajectories either congruent with Earth's gravity or perturbed with weightlessness (0 g) or hypergravity (2 g) effects. In separate sessions, trajectories were either fully visible or occluded before interception to enforce visual prediction. Subjects' oculomotor behavior was classified in terms of amounts of time they gazed at different visual targets and of overall number of saccades. Then, by way of multivariate analyses, we assessed the following: (1) whether eye movement patterns depended on targets' laws of motion and occlusions; and (2) whether interceptive performance was related to the oculomotor behavior. First, we found that eye movement patterns depended significantly on targets' laws of motion and occlusion, suggesting predictive mechanisms. Second, subjects coupled differently oculomotor and interceptive behavior depending on whether targets were visible or occluded. With visible targets, subjects made smaller interceptive errors if they gazed longer at the mouse cursor. Instead, with occluded targets, they achieved better performance by increasing the target's tracking accuracy and by avoiding gaze shifts near interception, suggesting that precise ocular tracking provided better trajectory predictions for the interceptive response.

  10. Neuroimaging of amblyopia and binocular vision: a review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olivier eJoly

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Amblyopia is a cerebral visual impairment considered to derive from abnormal visual experience (e.g., strabismus, anisometropia. Amblyopia, first considered as a monocular disorder, is now often seen as a primarily binocular disorder resulting in more and more studies examining the binocular deficits in the patients. The neural mechanisms of amblyopia are not completely understood even though they have been investigated with electrophysiological recordings in animal models and more recently with neuroimaging techniques in humans. In this review, we summarise the current knowledge about the brain regions that underlie the visual deficits associated with amblyopia with a focus on binocular vision using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI. The first studies focused on abnormal responses in the primary and secondary visual areas whereas recent evidence show that there are also deficits at higher levels of the visual pathways within the parieto-occipital and temporal cortices. These higher level areas are part of the cortical network involved in 3D vision from binocular cues. Therefore, reduced responses in these areas could be related to the impaired binocular vision in amblyopic patients. Promising new binocular treatments might at least partially correct the activation in these areas. Future neuroimaging experiments could help to characterise the brain response changes associated with these treatments and help devise them.

  11. Eye movements during the handwriting of words: Individually and within sentences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sita, Jodi C; Taylor, Katelyn A

    2015-10-01

    Handwriting, a complex motor process involves the coordination of both the upper limb and visual system. The gaze behavior that occurs during the handwriting process is an area that has been little studied. This study investigated the eye-movements of adults during writing and reading tasks. Eye and handwriting movements were recorded for six different words over three different tasks. The results compared reading and handwriting the same words, a between condition comparison and a comparison between the two handwriting tasks. Compared to reading, participants produced more fixations during handwriting tasks and the average fixation durations were longer. When reading fixations were found to be mostly around the center of word, whereas fixations when writing appear to be made for each letter in a written word and were located around the base of letters and flowed in a left to right direction. Between the two writing tasks more fixations were made when words were written individually compared to within sentences, yet fixation durations were no different. Correlation of the number of fixations made to kinematic variables revealed that horizontal size and road length held a strong correlation with the number of fixations made by participants. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. Nonexplicit change detection in complex dynamic settings: what eye movements reveal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vachon, François; Vallières, Benoît R; Jones, Dylan M; Tremblay, Sébastien

    2012-12-01

    We employed a computer-controlled command-and-control (C2) simulation and recorded eye movements to examine the extent and nature of the inability to detect critical changes in dynamic displays when change detection is implicit (i.e., requires no explicit report) to the operator's task. Change blindness-the failure to notice significant changes to a visual scene-may have dire consequences on performance in C2 and surveillance operations. Participants performed a radar-based risk-assessment task involving multiple subtasks. Although participants were not required to explicitly report critical changes to the operational display, change detection was critical in informing decision making. Participants' eye movements were used as an index of visual attention across the display. Nonfixated (i.e., unattended) changes were more likely to be missed than were fixated (i.e., attended) changes, supporting the idea that focused attention is necessary for conscious change detection. The finding of significant pupil dilation for changes undetected but fixated suggests that attended changes can nonetheless be missed because of a failure of attentional processes. Change blindness in complex dynamic displays takes the form of failures in establishing task-appropriate patterns of attentional allocation. These findings have implications in the design of change-detection support tools for dynamic displays and work procedure in C2 and surveillance.

  13. Distribution of fluorescein sodium and triamcinolone acetonide in the simulated liquefied and vitrectomized Vitreous Model with simulated eye movements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stein, Sandra; Bogdahn, Malte; Rosenbaum, Christoph; Weitschies, Werner; Seidlitz, Anne

    2017-11-15

    Intravitreal administration is the method of choice for drug delivery to the posterior segment of the eye with special emphasis on the vitreous body and its surrounding retinal vasculature. In order to gain a better understanding of the underlying distribution processes, an in vitro model simulating the vitreous body (Vitreous Model, VM) and a system simulating the impact of movement on the VM (Eye Movement System, EyeMoS) was previously developed. In the study reported here, these systems were modified in regard to a standardized injection procedure, the diversity of simulated eye movements, extended periods of investigation, the opportunity to simulate the state after vitrectomy and in considering the physiological temperature. Fluorescein sodium (FS) and triamcinolone acetonide (TA) were used as (model) drugs to examine the drug distribution within the VM. Vitrectomy was simulated by replacing half the volume of the polyacrylamide gel that was used as vitreous substitute with the clinically used Siluron® 5000 whereas for a simulated liquefaction half the volume of the gel was replaced by buffer. A simulated liquefaction caused a 12-fold faster distribution of FS compared to the simulated juvenile VM, which was most likely caused by convective forces and mass transfer. Also, the injection technique (injection into the gel or into the buffer compartment) influenced the resulting distribution pattern. Without any liquefaction, the previously described initial injection channel occurred with both (model) drugs and, in the case of TA, remained almost unchanged during the investigation period of 72h. Simulating vitrectomized eyes, TA did not spread uniformly, but either remained in the depot or strongly sedimented within the VM suggesting that a homogenous distribution of a TA suspension is highly unlikely in vitrectomized eyes. High variabilities were observed with ex vivo animal eyes, demonstrating the limited benefit of explanted tissues for such distribution

  14. Adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope using liquid crystal on silicon spatial light modulator: Performance study with involuntary eye movement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Hongxin; Toyoda, Haruyoshi; Inoue, Takashi

    2017-09-01

    The performance of an adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope (AO-SLO) using a liquid crystal on silicon spatial light modulator and Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor was investigated. The system achieved high-resolution and high-contrast images of human retinas by dynamic compensation for the aberrations in the eyes. Retinal structures such as photoreceptor cells, blood vessels, and nerve fiber bundles, as well as blood flow, could be observed in vivo. We also investigated involuntary eye movements and ascertained microsaccades and drifts using both the retinal images and the aberrations recorded simultaneously. Furthermore, we measured the interframe displacement of retinal images and found that during eye drift, the displacement has a linear relationship with the residual low-order aberration. The estimated duration and cumulative displacement of the drift were within the ranges estimated by a video tracking technique. The AO-SLO would not only be used for the early detection of eye diseases, but would also offer a new approach for involuntary eye movement research.

  15. Eye movements in Multiple Object Tracking systematically lagging behind the scene content

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Lukavský, Jiří

    2013-01-01

    Roč. 42, Suppl (2013), s. 42-43 ISSN 0301-0066. [36th European Conference on Visual Perception . 25.08.2013.-29.08.2013, Brémy] R&D Projects: GA ČR GA13-28709S Institutional support: RVO:68081740 Keywords : eye movements * attention * multiple object tracking Subject RIV: AN - Psychology http://www. perception web.com/abstract.cgi?id=v130146

  16. Modeling the Scheduling of Eye Movements and Manual Responses in Performing a Sequence of Discrete Tasks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Shu-Chieh; Remington, Roger W.; Lewis, Richard

    2006-01-01

    Common tasks in daily life are often accomplished by a sequence of actions that interleave information acquisition through the eyes and action execution by the hands. How are eye movements coordinated with the release of manual responses and how may their coordination be represented at the level of component mental operations? We have previously presented data from a typing-like task requiring separate choice responses to a series of five stimuli. We found a consistent pattern of results in both motor and ocular timing, and hypothesized possible relationships among underlying components. Here we report a model of that task, which demonstrates how the observed timing of eye movements to successive stimuli could be accounted for by assuming systems: an open-loop system generating saccades at a periodic rate, and a closed-loop system commanding a saccade based on stimulus processing. We relate this model to models of reading and discuss the motivation for dual control.

  17. Reward action in the initiation of smooth pursuit eye movements

    OpenAIRE

    Joshua, Mati; Lisberger, Stephen G.

    2012-01-01

    Reward has a powerful influence on motor behavior. To probe how and where reward systems alter motor behavior, we studied smooth pursuit eye movements in monkeys trained to associate the color of a visual cue with the size of the reward to be issued at the end of the target motion. When the tracking task presented two different colored targets that moved orthogonally, monkeys biased the initiation of pursuit towards the direction of motion of the target that led to larger reward. The bias was...

  18. Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder as an outlier detection problem

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kempfner, Jacob; Sørensen, Gertrud Laura; Nikolic, M.

    2014-01-01

    OBJECTIVE: Idiopathic rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder is a strong early marker of Parkinson's disease and is characterized by REM sleep without atonia and/or dream enactment. Because these measures are subject to individual interpretation, there is consequently need...... for quantitative methods to establish objective criteria. This study proposes a semiautomatic algorithm for the early detection of Parkinson's disease. This is achieved by distinguishing between normal REM sleep and REM sleep without atonia by considering muscle activity as an outlier detection problem. METHODS......: Sixteen healthy control subjects, 16 subjects with idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder, and 16 subjects with periodic limb movement disorder were enrolled. Different combinations of five surface electromyographic channels, including the EOG, were tested. A muscle activity score was automatically...

  19. Origins of superior dynamic visual acuity in baseball players: superior eye movements or superior image processing.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yusuke Uchida

    Full Text Available Dynamic visual acuity (DVA is defined as the ability to discriminate the fine parts of a moving object. DVA is generally better in athletes than in non-athletes, and the better DVA of athletes has been attributed to a better ability to track moving objects. In the present study, we hypothesized that the better DVA of athletes is partly derived from better perception of moving images on the retina through some kind of perceptual learning. To test this hypothesis, we quantitatively measured DVA in baseball players and non-athletes using moving Landolt rings in two conditions. In the first experiment, the participants were allowed to move their eyes (free-eye-movement conditions, whereas in the second they were required to fixate on a fixation target (fixation conditions. The athletes displayed significantly better DVA than the non-athletes in the free-eye-movement conditions. However, there was no significant difference between the groups in the fixation conditions. These results suggest that the better DVA of athletes is primarily due to an improved ability to track moving targets with their eyes, rather than to improved perception of moving images on the retina.

  20. Origins of superior dynamic visual acuity in baseball players: superior eye movements or superior image processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uchida, Yusuke; Kudoh, Daisuke; Murakami, Akira; Honda, Masaaki; Kitazawa, Shigeru

    2012-01-01

    Dynamic visual acuity (DVA) is defined as the ability to discriminate the fine parts of a moving object. DVA is generally better in athletes than in non-athletes, and the better DVA of athletes has been attributed to a better ability to track moving objects. In the present study, we hypothesized that the better DVA of athletes is partly derived from better perception of moving images on the retina through some kind of perceptual learning. To test this hypothesis, we quantitatively measured DVA in baseball players and non-athletes using moving Landolt rings in two conditions. In the first experiment, the participants were allowed to move their eyes (free-eye-movement conditions), whereas in the second they were required to fixate on a fixation target (fixation conditions). The athletes displayed significantly better DVA than the non-athletes in the free-eye-movement conditions. However, there was no significant difference between the groups in the fixation conditions. These results suggest that the better DVA of athletes is primarily due to an improved ability to track moving targets with their eyes, rather than to improved perception of moving images on the retina.

  1. A single-question screen for rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Postuma, Ronald B; Arnulf, Isabelle; Hogl, Birgit

    2012-01-01

    Idiopathic rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is a parasomnia that is an important risk factor for Parkinson's disease (PD) and Lewy body dementia. Its prevalence is unknown. One barrier to determining prevalence is that current screening tools are too long for large......-scale epidemiologic surveys. Therefore, we designed the REM Sleep Behavior Disorder Single-Question Screen (RBD1Q), a screening question for dream enactment with a simple yes/no response....

  2. Development of Estimating Equation of Machine Operational Skill by Utilizing Eye Movement Measurement and Analysis of Stress and Fatigue

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Satoshi Suzuki

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available For an establishment of a skill evaluation method for human support systems, development of an estimating equation of the machine operational skill is presented. Factors of the eye movement such as frequency, velocity, and moving distance of saccade were computed using the developed eye gaze measurement system, and the eye movement features were determined from these factors. The estimating equation was derived through an outlier test (to eliminate nonstandard data and a principal component analysis (to find dominant components. Using a cooperative carrying task (cc-task simulator, the eye movement and operational data of the machine operators were recorded, and effectiveness of the derived estimating equation was investigated. As a result, it was confirmed that the estimating equation was effective strongly against actual simple skill levels (r=0.56–0.84. In addition, effects of internal condition such as fatigue and stress on the estimating equation were analyzed. Using heart rate (HR and coefficient of variation of R-R interval (Cvrri. Correlation analysis between these biosignal indexes and the estimating equation of operational skill found that the equation reflected effects of stress and fatigue, although the equation could estimate the skill level adequately.

  3. Efference copy failure during smooth pursuit eye movements in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spering, Miriam; Dias, Elisa C; Sanchez, Jamie L; Schütz, Alexander C; Javitt, Daniel C

    2013-07-17

    Abnormal smooth pursuit eye movements in patients with schizophrenia are often considered a consequence of impaired motion perception. Here we used a novel motion prediction task to assess the effects of abnormal pursuit on perception in human patients. Schizophrenia patients (n = 15) and healthy controls (n = 16) judged whether a briefly presented moving target ("ball") would hit/miss a stationary vertical line segment ("goal"). To relate prediction performance and pursuit directly, we manipulated eye movements: in half of the trials, observers smoothly tracked the ball; in the other half, they fixated on the goal. Strict quality criteria ensured that pursuit was initiated and that fixation was maintained. Controls were significantly better in trajectory prediction during pursuit than during fixation, their performance increased with presentation duration, and their pursuit gain and perceptual judgments were correlated. Such perceptual benefits during pursuit may be due to the use of extraretinal motion information estimated from an efference copy signal. With an overall lower performance in pursuit and perception, patients showed no such pursuit advantage and no correlation between pursuit gain and perception. Although patients' pursuit showed normal improvement with longer duration, their prediction performance failed to benefit from duration increases. This dissociation indicates relatively intact early visual motion processing, but a failure to use efference copy information. Impaired efference function in the sensory system may represent a general deficit in schizophrenia and thus contribute to symptoms and functional outcome impairments associated with the disorder.

  4. Lexical Processes and Eye Movements in Neglect Dyslexia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Giuseppe di Pellegrino

    2002-01-01

    Full Text Available Neglect dyslexia is a disturbance in the allocation of spatial attention over a letter string following unilateral brain damage. Patients with this condition may fail to read letters on the contralesional side of an orthographic string. In some of these cases, reading is better with words than with non-words. This word superiority effect has received a variety of explanations that differ, among other things, with regard to the spatial distribution of attention across the letter string during reading. The primary goal of the present study was to explore the interaction between attention and lexical processes by recording eye movements in a patient (F.C. with severe left neglect dyslexia who was required to read isolated word and non-word stimuli of various length.

  5. Binocular vision in amblyopia: structure, suppression and plasticity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hess, Robert F; Thompson, Benjamin; Baker, Daniel H

    2014-03-01

    The amblyopic visual system was once considered to be structurally monocular. However, it now evident that the capacity for binocular vision is present in many observers with amblyopia. This has led to new techniques for quantifying suppression that have provided insights into the relationship between suppression and the monocular and binocular visual deficits experienced by amblyopes. Furthermore, new treatments are emerging that directly target suppressive interactions within the visual cortex and, on the basis of initial data, appear to improve both binocular and monocular visual function, even in adults with amblyopia. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of recent studies that have investigated the structure, measurement and treatment of binocular vision in observers with strabismic, anisometropic and mixed amblyopia. © 2014 The Authors Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics © 2014 The College of Optometrists.

  6. Reading speed, comprehension and eye movements while reading Japanese novels: evidence from untrained readers and cases of speed-reading trainees.

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    Hiromitsu Miyata

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: A growing body of evidence suggests that meditative training enhances perception and cognition. In Japan, the Park-Sasaki method of speed-reading involves organized visual training while forming both a relaxed and concentrated state of mind, as in meditation. The present study examined relationships between reading speed, sentence comprehension, and eye movements while reading short Japanese novels. In addition to normal untrained readers, three middle-level trainees and one high-level expert on this method were included for the two case studies. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In Study 1, three of 17 participants were middle-level trainees on the speed-reading method. Immediately after reading each story once on a computer monitor, participants answered true or false questions regarding the content of the novel. Eye movements while reading were recorded using an eye-tracking system. Results revealed higher reading speed and lower comprehension scores in the trainees than in the untrained participants. Furthermore, eye-tracking data by untrained participants revealed multiple correlations between reading speed, accuracy and eye-movement measures, with faster readers showing shorter fixation durations and larger saccades in X than slower readers. In Study 2, participants included a high-level expert and 14 untrained students. The expert showed higher reading speed and statistically comparable, although numerically lower, comprehension scores compared with the untrained participants. During test sessions this expert moved her eyes along a nearly straight horizontal line as a first pass, without moving her eyes over the whole sentence display as did the untrained students. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: In addition to revealing correlations between speed, comprehension and eye movements in reading Japanese contemporary novels by untrained readers, we describe cases of speed-reading trainees regarding relationships between these variables

  7. Processing rhythmic pattern during Chinese sentence reading: An eye movement study

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    Yingyi eLuo

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Prosodic constraints play a fundamental role during both spoken sentence comprehension and silent reading. In Chinese, the rhythmic pattern of the verb-object (V-O combination has been found to rapidly affect the semantic access/integration process during sentence reading (Luo and Zhou, 2010. Rhythmic pattern refers to the combination of words with different syllabic lengths, with certain combinations disallowed (e.g., [2+1]; numbers standing for the number of syllables of the verb and the noun respectively and certain combinations preferred (e.g., [1+1] or [2+2]. This constraint extends to the situation in which the combination is used to modify other words. A V-O phrase could modify a noun by simply preceding it, forming a V-O-N compound; when the verb is disyllabic, however, the word order has to be O-V-N and the object is preferred to be disyllabic. In this study, we investigated how the reader processes the rhythmic pattern and word order information by recording the reader’s eye-movements. We created four types of sentences by crossing rhythmic pattern and word order in compounding. The compound, embedding a disyllabic verb, could be in the correct O-V-N or the incorrect V-O-N order; the object could be disyllabic or monosyllabic. We found that the reader spent more time and made more regressions on and after the compounds when either type of anomaly was detected during the first pass reading. However, during re-reading (after all the words in the sentence have been viewed, less regressive eye movements were found for the anomalous rhythmic pattern, relative to the correct pattern; moreover, only the abnormal rhythmic pattern, not the violated word order, influenced the regressive eye movements. These results suggest that while the processing of rhythmic pattern and word order information occurs rapidly during the initial reading of the sentence, the process of recovering from the rhythmic pattern anomaly may ease the reanalysis

  8. Processing Rhythmic Pattern during Chinese Sentence Reading: An Eye Movement Study.

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    Luo, Yingyi; Duan, Yunyan; Zhou, Xiaolin

    2015-01-01

    Prosodic constraints play a fundamental role during both spoken sentence comprehension and silent reading. In Chinese, the rhythmic pattern of the verb-object (V-O) combination has been found to rapidly affect the semantic access/integration process during sentence reading (Luo and Zhou, 2010). Rhythmic pattern refers to the combination of words with different syllabic lengths, with certain combinations disallowed (e.g., [2 + 1]; numbers standing for the number of syllables of the verb and the noun respectively) and certain combinations preferred (e.g., [1 + 1] or [2 + 2]). This constraint extends to the situation in which the combination is used to modify other words. A V-O phrase could modify a noun by simply preceding it, forming a V-O-N compound; when the verb is disyllabic, however, the word order has to be O-V-N and the object is preferred to be disyllabic. In this study, we investigated how the reader processes the rhythmic pattern and word order information by recording the reader's eye-movements. We created four types of sentences by crossing rhythmic pattern and word order in compounding. The compound, embedding a disyllabic verb, could be in the correct O-V-N or the incorrect V-O-N order; the object could be disyllabic or monosyllabic. We found that the reader spent more time and made more regressions on and after the compounds when either type of anomaly was detected during the first pass reading. However, during re-reading (after all the words in the sentence have been viewed), less regressive eye movements were found for the anomalous rhythmic pattern, relative to the correct pattern; moreover, only the abnormal rhythmic pattern, not the violated word order, influenced the regressive eye movements. These results suggest that while the processing of rhythmic pattern and word order information occurs rapidly during the initial reading of the sentence, the process of recovering from the rhythmic pattern anomaly may ease the reanalysis processing at the

  9. Eye Movement Deficits Are Consistent with a Staging Model of pTDP-43 Pathology in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

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    Martin Gorges

    Full Text Available The neuropathological process underlying amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS can be traced as a four-stage progression scheme of sequential corticofugal axonal spread. The examination of eye movement control gains deep insights into brain network pathology and provides the opportunity to detect both disturbance of the brainstem oculomotor circuitry as well as executive deficits of oculomotor function associated with higher brain networks.To study systematically oculomotor characteristics in ALS and its underlying network pathology in order to determine whether eye movement deterioration can be categorized within a staging system of oculomotor decline that corresponds to the neuropathological model.Sixty-eight ALS patients and 31 controls underwent video-oculographic, clinical and neuropsychological assessments.Oculomotor examinations revealed increased anti- and delayed saccades' errors, gaze-palsy and a cerebellary type of smooth pursuit disturbance. The oculomotor disturbances occurred in a sequential manner: Stage 1, only executive control of eye movements was affected. Stage 2 indicates disturbed executive control plus 'genuine' oculomotor dysfunctions such as gaze-paly. We found high correlations (p<0.001 between the oculomotor stages and both, the clinical presentation as assessed by the ALS Functional Rating Scale (ALSFRS score, and cognitive scores from the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioral ALS Screen (ECAS.Dysfunction of eye movement control in ALS can be characterized by a two-staged sequential pattern comprising executive deficits in Stage 1 and additional impaired infratentorial oculomotor control pathways in Stage 2. This pattern parallels the neuropathological staging of ALS and may serve as a technical marker of the neuropathological spreading.

  10. Parallel programming of saccades during natural scene viewing: evidence from eye movement positions.

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    Wu, Esther X W; Gilani, Syed Omer; van Boxtel, Jeroen J A; Amihai, Ido; Chua, Fook Kee; Yen, Shih-Cheng

    2013-10-24

    Previous studies have shown that saccade plans during natural scene viewing can be programmed in parallel. This evidence comes mainly from temporal indicators, i.e., fixation durations and latencies. In the current study, we asked whether eye movement positions recorded during scene viewing also reflect parallel programming of saccades. As participants viewed scenes in preparation for a memory task, their inspection of the scene was suddenly disrupted by a transition to another scene. We examined whether saccades after the transition were invariably directed immediately toward the center or were contingent on saccade onset times relative to the transition. The results, which showed a dissociation in eye movement behavior between two groups of saccades after the scene transition, supported the parallel programming account. Saccades with relatively long onset times (>100 ms) after the transition were directed immediately toward the center of the scene, probably to restart scene exploration. Saccades with short onset times (programming of saccades during scene viewing. Additionally, results from the analyses of intersaccadic intervals were also consistent with the parallel programming hypothesis.

  11. Binocular video ophthalmoscope for simultaneous recording of sequences of the human retina to compare dynamic parameters

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    Tornow, Ralf P.; Milczarek, Aleksandra; Odstrcilik, Jan; Kolar, Radim

    2017-07-01

    A parallel video ophthalmoscope was developed to acquire short video sequences (25 fps, 250 frames) of both eyes simultaneously with exact synchronization. Video sequences were registered off-line to compensate for eye movements. From registered video sequences dynamic parameters like cardiac cycle induced reflection changes and eye movements can be calculated and compared between eyes.

  12. How strongly do word reading times and lexical decision times correlate? Combining data from eye movement corpora and megastudies.

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    Kuperman, Victor; Drieghe, Denis; Keuleers, Emmanuel; Brysbaert, Marc

    2013-01-01

    We assess the amount of shared variance between three measures of visual word recognition latencies: eye movement latencies, lexical decision times, and naming times. After partialling out the effects of word frequency and word length, two well-documented predictors of word recognition latencies, we see that 7-44% of the variance is uniquely shared between lexical decision times and naming times, depending on the frequency range of the words used. A similar analysis of eye movement latencies shows that the percentage of variance they uniquely share either with lexical decision times or with naming times is much lower. It is 5-17% for gaze durations and lexical decision times in studies with target words presented in neutral sentences, but drops to 0.2% for corpus studies in which eye movements to all words are analysed. Correlations between gaze durations and naming latencies are lower still. These findings suggest that processing times in isolated word processing and continuous text reading are affected by specific task demands and presentation format, and that lexical decision times and naming times are not very informative in predicting eye movement latencies in text reading once the effect of word frequency and word length are taken into account. The difference between controlled experiments and natural reading suggests that reading strategies and stimulus materials may determine the degree to which the immediacy-of-processing assumption and the eye-mind assumption apply. Fixation times are more likely to exclusively reflect the lexical processing of the currently fixated word in controlled studies with unpredictable target words rather than in natural reading of sentences or texts.

  13. Perceptual learning modifies untrained pursuit eye movements.

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    Szpiro, Sarit F A; Spering, Miriam; Carrasco, Marisa

    2014-07-07

    Perceptual learning improves detection and discrimination of relevant visual information in mature humans, revealing sensory plasticity. Whether visual perceptual learning affects motor responses is unknown. Here we implemented a protocol that enabled us to address this question. We tested a perceptual response (motion direction estimation, in which observers overestimate motion direction away from a reference) and a motor response (voluntary smooth pursuit eye movements). Perceptual training led to greater overestimation and, remarkably, it modified untrained smooth pursuit. In contrast, pursuit training did not affect overestimation in either pursuit or perception, even though observers in both training groups were exposed to the same stimuli for the same time period. A second experiment revealed that estimation training also improved discrimination, indicating that overestimation may optimize perceptual sensitivity. Hence, active perceptual training is necessary to alter perceptual responses, and an acquired change in perception suffices to modify pursuit, a motor response. © 2014 ARVO.

  14. Interaction of visual and vestibular stimulation on spatial coordinates for eye movements in rabbits.

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    Pettorossi, V E; Errico, P; Ferraresi, A; Minciotti, M; Barmack, N H

    1998-07-01

    Researchers investigated how vestibular and optokinetic signals alter the spatial transformation of the coordinate system that governs the spatial orientation of reflexive eye movements. Also examined were the effects of sensory stimulation when vestibular and optokinetic signals act synergistically and when the two signals are in conflict.

  15. Mouse cursor movement and eye tracking data as an indicator of pathologists′ attention when viewing digital whole slide images

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    Vignesh Raghunath

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Context: Digital pathology has the potential to dramatically alter the way pathologists work, yet little is known about pathologists′ viewing behavior while interpreting digital whole slide images. While tracking pathologist eye movements when viewing digital slides may be the most direct method of capturing pathologists′ viewing strategies, this technique is cumbersome and technically challenging to use in remote settings. Tracking pathologist mouse cursor movements may serve as a practical method of studying digital slide interpretation, and mouse cursor data may illuminate pathologists′ viewing strategies and time expenditures in their interpretive workflow. Aims: To evaluate the utility of mouse cursor movement data, in addition to eye-tracking data, in studying pathologists′ attention and viewing behavior. Settings and Design: Pathologists (N = 7 viewed 10 digital whole slide images of breast tissue that were selected using a random stratified sampling technique to include a range of breast pathology diagnoses (benign/atypia, carcinoma in situ, and invasive breast cancer. A panel of three expert breast pathologists established a consensus diagnosis for each case using a modified Delphi approach. Materials and Methods: Participants′ foveal vision was tracked using SensoMotoric Instruments RED 60 Hz eye-tracking system. Mouse cursor movement was tracked using a custom MATLAB script. Statistical Analysis Used: Data on eye-gaze and mouse cursor position were gathered at fixed intervals and analyzed using distance comparisons and regression analyses by slide diagnosis and pathologist expertise. Pathologists′ accuracy (defined as percent agreement with the expert consensus diagnoses and efficiency (accuracy and speed were also analyzed. Results: Mean viewing time per slide was 75.2 seconds (SD = 38.42. Accuracy (percent agreement with expert consensus by diagnosis type was: 83% (benign/atypia; 48% (carcinoma in situ; and 93% (invasive

  16. Mouse cursor movement and eye tracking data as an indicator of pathologists’ attention when viewing digital whole slide images

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    Raghunath, Vignesh; Braxton, Melissa O.; Gagnon, Stephanie A.; Brunyé, Tad T.; Allison, Kimberly H.; Reisch, Lisa M.; Weaver, Donald L.; Elmore, Joann G.; Shapiro, Linda G.

    2012-01-01

    Context: Digital pathology has the potential to dramatically alter the way pathologists work, yet little is known about pathologists’ viewing behavior while interpreting digital whole slide images. While tracking pathologist eye movements when viewing digital slides may be the most direct method of capturing pathologists’ viewing strategies, this technique is cumbersome and technically challenging to use in remote settings. Tracking pathologist mouse cursor movements may serve as a practical method of studying digital slide interpretation, and mouse cursor data may illuminate pathologists’ viewing strategies and time expenditures in their interpretive workflow. Aims: To evaluate the utility of mouse cursor movement data, in addition to eye-tracking data, in studying pathologists’ attention and viewing behavior. Settings and Design: Pathologists (N = 7) viewed 10 digital whole slide images of breast tissue that were selected using a random stratified sampling technique to include a range of breast pathology diagnoses (benign/atypia, carcinoma in situ, and invasive breast cancer). A panel of three expert breast pathologists established a consensus diagnosis for each case using a modified Delphi approach. Materials and Methods: Participants’ foveal vision was tracked using SensoMotoric Instruments RED 60 Hz eye-tracking system. Mouse cursor movement was tracked using a custom MATLAB script. Statistical Analysis Used: Data on eye-gaze and mouse cursor position were gathered at fixed intervals and analyzed using distance comparisons and regression analyses by slide diagnosis and pathologist expertise. Pathologists’ accuracy (defined as percent agreement with the expert consensus diagnoses) and efficiency (accuracy and speed) were also analyzed. Results: Mean viewing time per slide was 75.2 seconds (SD = 38.42). Accuracy (percent agreement with expert consensus) by diagnosis type was: 83% (benign/atypia); 48% (carcinoma in situ); and 93% (invasive). Spatial

  17. Moving eyes and naming objects

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Meulen, F.F. van der

    2001-01-01

    The coordination between eye movements and speech was examined while speakers were naming objects. Earlier research has shown that eye movements reflect on the underlying visual attention. Also, eye movements were found to reflect upon not only the visual and conceptual processing of an object, but

  18. Uncovering the cognitive processes underlying mental rotation: an eye-movement study.

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    Xue, Jiguo; Li, Chunyong; Quan, Cheng; Lu, Yiming; Yue, Jingwei; Zhang, Chenggang

    2017-08-30

    Mental rotation is an important paradigm for spatial ability. Mental-rotation tasks are assumed to involve five or three sequential cognitive-processing states, though this has not been demonstrated experimentally. Here, we investigated how processing states alternate during mental-rotation tasks. Inference was carried out using an advanced statistical modelling and data-driven approach - a discriminative hidden Markov model (dHMM) trained using eye-movement data obtained from an experiment consisting of two different strategies: (I) mentally rotate the right-side figure to be aligned with the left-side figure and (II) mentally rotate the left-side figure to be aligned with the right-side figure. Eye movements were found to contain the necessary information for determining the processing strategy, and the dHMM that best fit our data segmented the mental-rotation process into three hidden states, which we termed encoding and searching, comparison, and searching on one-side pair. Additionally, we applied three classification methods, logistic regression, support vector model and dHMM, of which dHMM predicted the strategies with the highest accuracy (76.8%). Our study did confirm that there are differences in processing states between these two of mental-rotation strategies, and were consistent with the previous suggestion that mental rotation is discrete process that is accomplished in a piecemeal fashion.

  19. Individual Differences in the Processing of Written Sarcasm and Metaphor: Evidence from Eye Movements

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    Olkoniemi, Henri; Ranta, Henri; Kaakinen, Johanna K.

    2016-01-01

    The present study examined individual differences in the processing of different forms of figurative language. Sixty participants read sarcastic, metaphorical, and literal sentences embedded in story contexts while their eye movements were recorded, and responded to a text memory and an inference question after each story. Individual differences…

  20. The effects of eye movements on emotional memories : using an objective measure of cognitive load

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    van Veen, Suzanne C.; Engelhard, Iris M.; van den Hout, Marcel A.

    2016-01-01

    Background: Eyemovement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is an effective treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder. The workingmemory (WM) theory explains its efficacy: recall of an aversivememory and making eye movements (EM) both produce cognitive load, and competition for the limited WM