Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T21:45:19.153Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

How are saccades generated?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 1999

John M. Findlay
Affiliation:
Centre for Vision and Visual Cognition, Department of Psychology, University of Durham, Durham, DH1 3LE, [email protected]
Robin Walker
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, [email protected]

Abstract

Our target article discussed how emerging knowledge of the physiological processes involved in the control of saccadic eye movements provided the basis for a functional framework in which to understand the programming of such movements. The commentators raised many interesting issues in their varied responses that ranged from detailed discussion of the physiological substrate through issues of saccade control in reading. New evidence at the physiological level demonstrates that some elaborations are needed to the framework we proposed. Most clearly, the spatial selection process operates in a manner different from our suggestion of an increase in activity in the salience map. Some commentators make the interesting and welcome proposal that the functional processes we outline may in fact be implemented with an even more unified physiological substrate (continuity between collicular fixation and build-up cells) than we envisaged. Extensions to the framework are discussed involving the planning of sequential saccades, saccades made in crossmodal situations, the influences of learning and memory, and binocular saccades. We consider carefully the commentaries proposing explicit attentional and/or executive processes in the programming of saccades. We integrate the comments of researchers investigating saccade control in neurological and neuropsychiatric patients and finally discuss whether the framework can account for saccades made in the course of reading.

Type
Authors' Response
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)