Fixational eye movements and neural code studies
Most of our visual experience is driven by the eye movements we produce while we fixate our gaze. In a sense, our visual system thus has a built-in contradiction: when we direct our gaze at an object of interest, our eyes are never still. Therefore the perception, physiology, and computational modeling of fixational eye movements is critical to our understanding of vision in general, and also to the understanding of the neural computations that work to overcome neural adaptation in normal subjects as well as in clinical patients. Moreover, because we are not aware of our fixational eye movements, they can also help us understand the underpinnings of visual awareness. Over the last decade, we have studied the neuronal and perceptual correlates of fixational eye movements. Our long-term objectives are to build on our previous discoveries concerning the neural activity driven by fixational eye movements, and to also discover the oculomotor basis for generating fixational eye movements. We have moreover begun to study the importance of fixational eye movements for visual perception in normal vision and in visual disease.
(see full list of publications)
Trends in Neurosciences; 32, 463-475. Microsaccades: a neurophysiological analysis
Encyclopedia of Perception, Ed. E. Bruce Goldstein, Sage Press,438-439. Eye movements during fixation
PNAS; 105: 16033 – 16038. Microsaccades drive illusory motion in the Enigma illusion Supporting information
Journal of Vision; 8(14):15, 1-9 Microsaccades counteract perceptual filling-inSpecial Issue on Eye Movements and the Perception of a Clear and Stable Visual World
Journal of Vision; 8(14):21, 1-18 Saccades and microsaccades during visual fixation, exploration, and search: Foundations for a common saccadic generatorSpecial Issue on Eye Movements and the Perception of a Clear and Stable Visual World
Neurology; 70, 810-2.
Suppression of saccadic intrusions in hereditary ataxia by memantine
Scientific American; 297, 56-63. Windows on the mind
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Neuron; 49, 297-305.
Microsaccades counteract visual fading during fixation
Preview by Ralf Engbert (Neuron; 49: 168-170). Reviewed by the Faculty of 1000
Progress in Brain Research; 154. 151-176.
Fixational eye movements in normal and pathological vision
Journal of Vision; 6, 1093-1101.
Induced visual fading of complex images
Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 5, 229-240.
The role of fixational eye movements in visual perception
PNAS, 99, 13920-13925.
The function of bursts of spikes during visual fixation in the awake primate lateral geniculate nucleus and primary visual cortex
Ciencia Al Dia Internacional; 3(3).
How the visual system prevents the world from fading.
Spanish version
Nature Neuroscience; 3, 251-258.
Microsaccadic eye movements and firing of single cells in the striate cortex of macaque monkeys