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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 3, 2026

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity

Published on: March 18, 2019

Temporal dynamics of saccades explained by a self-paced process.

Roy Amit¹, Dekel Abeles², Izhar Bar-Gad³

¹Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, 6997801, Tel Aviv, Israel. royamit@post.tau.ac.il.

Scientific Reports

|April 22, 2017

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Saccadic eye movements, crucial for visual sampling, are not driven by an internal clock. Instead, their timing suggests a self-paced generation, where each movement influences the next.

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Last Updated: Mar 3, 2026

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity

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Published on: March 18, 2019

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Using Saccadometry with Deep Brain Stimulation to Study Normal and Pathological Brain Function

Using Saccadometry with Deep Brain Stimulation to Study Normal and Pathological Brain Function

Published on: July 14, 2016

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Systems Neuroscience
Computational Neuroscience

Background:

Sensory organs rhythmically sample environments, influencing perception.
Rhythmic motor control, seen in whisking and sniffing, shapes sensory input.
Saccadic eye movements are primate visual sampling mechanisms, potentially part of rhythmic exploration.

Purpose of the Study:

Characterize saccadic rhythmicity.
Determine if saccade generation is autonomous or self-paced.
Investigate the temporal dynamics of saccades during different visual tasks.

Main Methods:

Tracked eye movements during free-viewing and fixation.
Analyzed temporal dynamics of exploratory and fixational saccades.
Applied spike-train analysis methods and mathematical modeling.

Main Results:

Saccade timings are explained by first-order dependencies, primarily the refractory period.
Saccade timing is inconsistent with autonomous oscillatory generation.
Saccade timing is consistent with a self-paced generation model.

Conclusions:

Saccadic eye movements are likely self-paced, not driven by an autonomous pacemaker.
Each saccade is a link in a neural process chain dependent on its own outcome.
A mathematical model is proposed to explain saccade timing dynamics and suggest neural mechanisms.