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Eye movements are primed toward the center of multiple stimuli even when the interstimulus distances are too large to generate saccade averaging

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Abstract

Prior oculomotor research has established that saccades tend to land near the center of multiple saccade targets when they are near each other. This saccade averaging phenomenon (or global effect) has been ascribed to short-distance lateral excitation between neurons in the superior colliculus. Further, at greater inter-stimulus distances, eye movements tend toward the individual elements. This transition to control by local elements (individuation) with inter-stimulus distance has been attributed to long-range lateral inhibition between neurons in winner-take-all models of oculomotor behavior. We hypothesized that the traditional method of requiring a saccade to an array of multiple, simultaneous targets may entail response ambiguity that intensifies with distance. We resolved the ambiguity by focussing on reaction time of our human participants to a single saccade target after one or more simultaneous priming stimuli. At a 50-ms prime-target interval, saccadic reaction time was shortest for targets closer to the center of the prime stimuli independent of the distance between the primes. This effect was gone at 400 ms. These findings challenge the typical inferences about the neural control of oculomotor behavior that have been derived from the boundary between saccade averaging and individuation and provide a new method to explore eye movements with lessened impact from decision processes.

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Notes

  1. Results from trials with single primes and nearby (45° away) targets allowed us to confirm the null results reported with single targets from the studies by Wang et al. (2012a, b) and Watanabe (2001). Saccade landing positions were measured with respect to how much they deviated toward or away from that primeQuery. At the 50 ms PTOA the mean of deviation was 0.17° (away from the cued side), 95 % CI = [−0.09°, 0.42°]. At the 400 ms PTOA the mean deviation was −0.3° (toward the cued side), 95 % CI = [−0.6°, 0.01°]. Thus, in agreement with Wang et al. and Watanabe, with confidence intervals that include zero, there is no compelling evidence here to suggest that single primes bias saccade landing sites when single targets are presented at unknown locations.

  2. Further examination of errors in landing position revealed that the median Euclidean distance between landing position and the center of the target for the correct trials was approximately 1°. There was also no relationship between accuracy of landing position and SRT (r = −0.03).

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by an NSERC grant to Raymond M. Klein and was made possible by a Killam Fellowship to Matthew Hilchey.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada

    John Christie, Matthew D. Hilchey & Raymond M. Klein

  2. Center for Neural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Allahabad, India

    Ramesh Mishra

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  1. John Christie
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  2. Matthew D. Hilchey
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  3. Ramesh Mishra
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  4. Raymond M. Klein
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Correspondence to John Christie.

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Christie, J., Hilchey, M.D., Mishra, R. et al. Eye movements are primed toward the center of multiple stimuli even when the interstimulus distances are too large to generate saccade averaging. Exp Brain Res 233, 1541–1549 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-015-4227-7

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