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Updated: Jun 28, 2025
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Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity
Published on: March 18, 2019
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Common structure of saccades and microsaccades in visual perception
Zhenni Wang1,2,3, Radha Nila Meghanathan4,5, Stefan Pollmann4,6,7
1Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Journal of Vision
|April 24, 2024
Summary
Eye movements, including saccades and microsaccades, share similar patterns for visual object perception. This suggests a common oculomotor program optimizes how we gather information from faces and houses.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Vision Science
Background:
- Visual perception relies on information gathered by the eyes, traditionally compared to camera mapping.
- Eye movements are dynamic, involving saccades between fixations and microsaccades within fixations.
- The functional role of microsaccades in information sampling, especially under restricted movement, is not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether saccades and microsaccades share common spatiotemporal structures during visual object perception.
- To determine if these eye movements exhibit distinct patterns when viewing different object categories like faces and houses.
- To explore the relationship between saccadic and microsaccadic patterns and their potential commonality in optimizing visual information sampling.
Main Methods:
- Utilized free-viewing and fixation-controlled conditions with 27 adult participants.
- Recorded eye movements, specifically saccades and microsaccades, while participants viewed images of faces and houses.
- Applied pattern classification techniques to analyze and discriminate spatiotemporal patterns of saccades and microsaccades.
Main Results:
- Both saccades and microsaccades exhibited distinct spatiotemporal patterns differentiating face and house viewing.
- Pattern classifications derived from saccades and microsaccades were mutually generalizable.
- Individuals with more distinct saccadic patterns also showed more distinct microsaccadic patterns.
- Saccades and microsaccades demonstrated higher structural similarity during face viewing compared to house viewing.
- A common orienting preference was observed for the eye region over the mouth region during viewing.
Conclusions:
- Saccades and microsaccades share common spatiotemporal structures, indicating a unified oculomotor program.
- This common program appears to optimize information sampling during the perception of visual objects.
- The findings highlight the functional significance of microsaccades in visual processing, akin to saccades.
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