Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 22, 2026
Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity
Published on: March 18, 2019
Are there any left-right asymmetries in saccade parameters? Examination of latency, gain, and peak velocity
Dorine Vergilino-Perez1, Alexandra Fayel, Christelle Lemoine
1Laboratoire Vision Action Cognition Institut Universitaire Paris Descartes de Psychologie, Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Institut de Psychologie, Boulogne Billancourt, France. dorine.vergilino-perez@parisdescartes.fr
Purpose:
Hemispheric specialization in saccadic control is still under debate. Here we examine the latency, gain, and peak velocity of reactive and voluntary leftward and rightward saccades to assess the respective roles of eye and hand dominance.
Methods:
Participants with contrasting hand and eye dominance were asked to make saccades toward a target displayed at 5°, 10°, or 15° left or right of the central fixation point. In separate sessions, reactive and voluntary saccades were elicited by Gap-200, Gap-0, Overlap-600, and Antisaccade procedures.
Results:
Left-right asymmetries were not found in saccade latencies but appeared in saccade gain and peak velocity. Regardless of the dominant hand, saccades directed to the ipsilateral side relative to the dominant eye had larger amplitudes and faster peak velocities.
Conclusions:
Left-right asymmetries can be explained by naso-temporal differences for some subjects and by eye dominance for others. Further investigations are needed to examine saccadic parameters more systematically in relation to eye dominance. Indeed, any method that allows one to determine ocular dominance from objective measures based on saccade parameters should greatly benefit clinical applications, such as monovision surgery.
