Visual And Oculomotor Functions

A collection of contemporary work in various areas of eye-movement research with an emphasis on physiological aspects is presented in this book. The contributions are divided into six sections: I. saccadic eye movements; II. smooth pursuit and motion perception; III. eye movements in pathology and clinical settings; IV. neurophysiology of eye movements; V. optokinetic nystagmus; and VI. methods. This volume provides updated information on the most recent research on eye movements carried out mainly in Europe.

This 2001 text emphasizes the role of oculomotor systems in perception and the implications of researching them.

This is the first book to deal exclusively with oculomotor performance in a series that, up to this point, has been devoted largely to reviews of research on oculomotor anatomy and physiology. The publication of this volume signifies the recognition of the fact that a genuine understanding of eye movement will not come about through the study of neurons alone. We need to know about the capacity to make different kinds of eye movement, and about how such oculomotor capacity is used to accomplish different sorts of visual and cognitive tasks, i.e. how the eye can move and why it moves in particular ways. Research on respective topics was critically evaluated by the contributing authors, resulting in a controversial and up-to-date appraisal of this subject.

This volume contains the proceedings of the Ninth European Conference on Eye Movements (ECEM 9), held in Ulm, Germany, on September 23-26, 1997. ECEM 9 con tinued a series of conferences initiated by Rudolf Groner of Bern, Switzerland, in 1981 which, from its very beginning, has brought together scientists from very diverse fields with a common interest in eye movements. About 40 of the papers presented at ECEM 9 have been selected for presentation in full length while others are rendered in condensed form. There is a broad spectrum of motives why people have become involved in, and fas cinated by, eye movement research. Neuroscientists have been allured by the prospect of understanding anatomical findings, single unit recordings, and the sequels of experimental lesions in terms of the clearly defined system requirements and the well documented be havioural repertoire of the oculomotor system. Others have been attracted by the richness of this repertoire and its dependence on an intricate hierarchy of factors spanning from "simple" reflexes to visual pattern recognition and spatio-temporal prediction. Neurolo gists, neuro-ophthalmologists and neuro-otologists have long standing experience with eye movements as sensitive indicators of lesions in the brain stem, the midbrain, and the cere bellum. By studying oculomotor malfunctions they have made, and are continuing to make, important contributions to our understanding of oculomotor functions.

Originally published in 1978, this volume reflects the proceedings of a conference held in February 1977 in California and is a natural successor to the earlier volume Eye Movements and Psychological Processes (Monty & Senders, 1976). The second conference was aimed at providing a greater opportunity for discussing the "higher mental processes" touched on in the first volume. Part 1 is devoted to an intensive review of the underlying processes and psychological functions of eye movements. It includes discussions of the relationships of cortical and subcortical visual areas to eye movements and visual processing associated with them; information about the position of the eye in the head and the perception of visual space; saccades and visual functioning; and masking. In further parts it goes on to look at: methodology and models; cognitive processes; reading processes; looking at static and dynamic display; and finally chapters on problems and applications.

Originally published in 1981, this volume represents the edited proceedings of the third symposium on eye movements and behaviour sponsored by the US Army Human Engineering Laboratory. The conference, titled "The Last Whole Earth Eye Movement Conference" was held in Florida in February 1980. As the conference approached, seizure of the American hostages by the Iranian militants, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and the uncertain economic outlook around the world made it appear as though the title was a self-fulfilling prophecy. But the meeting proved highly successful and people throughout the world seemed to be adapting to the stresses of international tension, making the possibility of subsequent meetings more likely. The present volume is intended to serve as a complementary text to the earlier texts Eye Movements and Psychological Processes (Monty & Senders, 1976) and Eye Movements and the Higher Psychological Functions (Senders, Fisher & Monty, 1978), rather than a revision and update of them.

This volume contains selected and edited papers from the fifth European Conference on Eye Movements (ECEM 5) held at the University of Pavia, Italy on September 10-13, 1989. The volume is organized in six sections as follows: Neurophysiology of Eye Movements; Control of Eye Movements; Eye-Head Coordination; Eye Movements in Pathology; Eye Movements and Cognitive Processes and Applied Research. The last section also contains some papers derived from the satellite symposium on Visual Processes and Eye Movements in Dyslexia, which was organized by the Roding Remediation Foundation.