Dataset Information

Eye movements under various conditions of image fading.

ABSTRACT: Under normal viewing conditions, the image on the retina is always in motion. Images fade and may eventually disappear when the physiological motion of the retinal stimulus is reduced or eliminated. According to a widespread theory, microsaccades are responsible for maintaining visibility during fixation. However, while it is clear that the sudden changes in visual input caused by microsaccades are sufficient to restore visibility, it has long been questioned whether this effect might be an epiphenomenon, rather than an important function of microsaccades. In this study, we compared the eye movements measured under conditions that either simulated or induced loss of visibility to those recorded when fading did not occur. Both drifts and microsaccades were unaffected by changes in the stimulus contrast and bandwidth that recreated the percept experienced during image fading. Under retinal stabilization, a condition in which observers reported fading, microsaccade rates decreased, instead of increasing as predicted by the fading prevention hypothesis. While image fading had no influence on oculomotor activity, eye movements were instead strongly modulated by the onset of the stimulus and by the requested precision of fixation. Microsaccades occurred more frequently and were more corrective for preceding drifts during accurate fixation on a cue than during relaxed fixation on a region of the screen. These results do not support a causal relationship between image fading and microsaccade production and show that the precision of required fixation is a major contributor to microsaccades.

SUBMITTER: Poletti M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2951333 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Eye movements under various conditions of image fading.

Poletti Martina M Rucci Michele M

Journal of vision 20100324 3

Under normal viewing conditions, the image on the retina is always in motion. Images fade and may eventually disappear when the physiological motion of the retinal stimulus is reduced or eliminated. According to a widespread theory, microsaccades are responsible for maintaining visibility during fixation. However, while it is clear that the sudden changes in visual input caused by microsaccades are sufficient to restore visibility, it has long been questioned whether this effect might be an epip ...[more]

PMID: 20377283

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Project description:This study offers a new method for examining the bodily, manual, and eye movements of a chimpanzee at the micro-level. A female chimpanzee wore a lightweight head-mounted eye tracker (60 Hz) on her head while engaging in daily interactions with the human experimenter. The eye tracker recorded her eye movements accurately while the chimpanzee freely moved her head, hands, and body. Three video cameras recorded the bodily and manual movements of the chimpanzee from multiple angles. We examined how the chimpanzee viewed the experimenter in this interactive setting and how the eye movements were related to the ongoing interactive contexts and actions. We prepared two experimentally defined contexts in each session: a face-to-face greeting phase upon the appearance of the experimenter in the experimental room, and a subsequent face-to-face task phase that included manual gestures and fruit rewards. Overall, the general viewing pattern of the chimpanzee, measured in terms of duration of individual fixations, length of individual saccades, and total viewing duration of the experimenter's face/body, was very similar to that observed in previous eye-tracking studies that used non-interactive situations, despite the differences in the experimental settings. However, the chimpanzee viewed the experimenter and the scene objects differently depending on the ongoing context and actions. The chimpanzee viewed the experimenter's face and body during the greeting phase, but viewed the experimenter's face and hands as well as the fruit reward during the task phase. These differences can be explained by the differential bodily/manual actions produced by the chimpanzee and the experimenter during each experimental phase (i.e., greeting gestures, task cueing). Additionally, the chimpanzee's viewing pattern varied depending on the identity of the experimenter (i.e., the chimpanzee's prior experience with the experimenter). These methods and results offer new possibilities for examining the natural gaze behavior of chimpanzees.

Dataset Information

Eye movements under various conditions of image fading.

Publications

Eye movements under various conditions of image fading.

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