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Control of eye movement reflexes.

L Machado¹, R Rafal

¹Psychology Department, University of Wales, Bangor, Gwynedd, UK. lianamachado@bigfoot.com

Experimental Brain Research

|December 5, 2000

Summary

Suppressing reflexive eye movements does not weaken external control over visual fixation. The fixation offset effect (FOE) remains robust even when inhibiting automatic eye movements, suggesting other factors are at play.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Psychology
Ophthalmology

Background:

The fixation offset effect (FOE) demonstrates how visual stimuli at fixation can inhibit reflexive eye movements.
Preparatory cognitive states can reduce the reactivity of the fixation reflex, diminishing the FOE.
Previous research linked reduced FOE during anti-saccade tasks to the inhibition of reflexive eye movements.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if suppressing reflexive saccades impacts external control over ocular fixation.
To determine the role of reflexive eye movement suppression in modulating the fixation offset effect.

Main Methods:

Utilized a go-nogo saccade paradigm to test the effect of reflexive eye movement suppression on fixation.
Participants performed target-directed saccades, maintained fixation (nogo trials), or executed anti-saccades.
Compared the FOE when nogo trials or anti-saccade trials were admixed with target-directed saccades.

Main Results:

A large FOE was observed when nogo trials were mixed with target-directed saccades.
A small FOE was observed for both target-directed saccades and anti-saccades when they were mixed.
The suppression of reflexive eye movements did not abolish the external control over fixation.

Conclusions:

Strategic suppression of reflexive eye movements does not diminish external control over ocular fixation.
The preparation for anti-saccades may involve other mechanisms that reduce the FOE.
Further research is needed to identify the specific components of anti-saccade preparation that influence the FOE.

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