Authors: Jean Blouin Nicolas Amade JeanLouis Vercher Normand Teasdale Gabriel M Gauthier
Publish Date: 2002/04/13
Volume: 144, Issue: 3, Pages: 281-292
Abstract
Accurate information about gaze direction is required to direct the hand towards visual objects in the environment In the present experiments we tested whether retinal inputs affect the accuracy with which healthy subjects indicate their gaze direction with the unseen index finger after voluntary saccadic eye movements In experiment 1 subjects produced a series of back and forth saccades about eight of selfselected magnitudes before positioning the eyes in a selfchosen direction to the right The saccades were produced while facing one of four possible visual scenes 1 complete darkness 2 a scene composed of a single lightemitting diode LED located at 18° to the right 3 a visually enriched scene made up of three LEDs located at 0° 18° and 36° to the right or 4 a normally illuminated scene where the lights in the experimental room were turned on Subjects were then asked to indicate their gaze direction with their unseen index finger In the conditions where the visual scenes were composed of LEDs subjects were instructed to foveate or not foveate one of the LEDs with their last saccade It was therefore possible to compare subjects’ accuracy when pointing in the direction of their gaze in conditions with and without foveal stimulation The results showed that the accuracy of the pointing movements decreased when subjects produced their saccades in a dark environment or in the presence of a single LED compared to when the saccades were generated in richer visual environments Visual stimulation of the fovea did not increase subjects’ accuracy when pointing in the direction of their gaze compared to conditions where there was only stimulation of the peripheral retina Experiment 2 tested how the retinal signals could contribute to the coding of eye position after saccadic eye movements More specifically we tested whether the shift in the retinal image of the environment during the saccades provided information about the reached position of the eyes Subjects produced their series of saccades while facing a visual environment made up of three LEDs In some trials the whole visual scene was displaced either 45° to the left or 3° to the right during the primary saccade These displacements created mismatches between the shift of the retinal image of the environment and the extent of gaze deviation The displacements of the visual scene were not perceived by the subjects because they occurred near the peak velocity of the saccade saccadic suppression phenomenon Pointing accuracy was not affected by the unperceived shifts of the visual scene The results of these experiments suggest that the arm motor system receives more precise information about gaze direction when there is retinal stimulation than when there is none They also suggest that the most relevant factor in defining gaze direction is not the retinal locus of the visual stimulation that is peripheral or foveal but rather the amount of visual information Finally the results suggest an enhanced egocentric encoding of gaze direction by the retinal inputs and do not support a retinotopic model for encoding gaze direction
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