Moving gratings and microsaccades. 1990

D H Kelly
Visual Sciences Program, SRI International, Menlo Park, California 94025.

This paper reports an extended study of anomalous (enhanced) sensitivity to moving gratings in the range of 1-10 cycles per degree, at high temporal frequencies (greater than 20 Hz), i.e., in the high-frequency corner of the spatiotemporal threshold surface. The effect is very robust. All subjects (n = 5) show the effect with moving or flickering gratings and with or without stabilization of the retinal image. After eliminating various types of potential artifacts, the phenomenon was finally attributed to a form of transient destabilization associated with microsaccadic eye movements. In the unstabilized condition, microsaccades and voluntary saccades both interact with the grating motion to produce visible flashes. With image stabilization, the (1-msec) delay of the Purkinje-image eyetracker interacts with these saccades in a way that increases the visibility of the associated flashes. The form of the threshold data suggests that the size of the saccades may vary with the spatial period of the moving grating.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D009039 Motion Perception The real or apparent movement of objects through the visual field. Movement Perception,Perception, Motion,Perception, Movement
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D012438 Saccades An abrupt voluntary shift in ocular fixation from one point to another, as occurs in reading. Pursuit, Saccadic,Saccadic Eye Movements,Eye Movement, Saccadic,Eye Movements, Saccadic,Movement, Saccadic Eye,Movements, Saccadic Eye,Pursuits, Saccadic,Saccade,Saccadic Eye Movement,Saccadic Pursuit,Saccadic Pursuits
D012684 Sensory Thresholds The minimum amount of stimulus energy necessary to elicit a sensory response. Sensory Threshold,Threshold, Sensory,Thresholds, Sensory
D014796 Visual Perception The selecting and organizing of visual stimuli based on the individual's past experience. Visual Processing,Perception, Visual,Processing, Visual
D015350 Contrast Sensitivity The ability to detect sharp boundaries (stimuli) and to detect slight changes in luminance at regions without distinct contours. Psychophysical measurements of this visual function are used to evaluate VISUAL ACUITY and to detect eye disease. Visual Contrast Sensitivity,Sensitivity, Contrast,Sensitivity, Visual Contrast

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