Elsevier

Vision Research

Volume 23, Issue 12, 1983, Pages 1573-1583
Vision Research

Smooth pursuit eye movements in response to predictable target motions

https://doi.org/10.1016/0042-6989(83)90171-2Get rights and content

Abstract

The human smooth pursuit eye movement system has a latency of about 150msec. However, this study shows that humans can learn to perform zero-latency tracking of targets that move with continuous velocity and amplitude-limited acceleration. Superposition of eye velocity and target velocity records, for our unique target waveforms, demonstrated that the subject was using the correct waveform and not just approximating it with a sinusoid or some other simple waveform. Calculation of the mean square error between target and eye position gave a quantitative measure of how well the human can track. The mean square error between target and eye position was 0.32 deg2 for one thousand seconds of steady-state tracking by seven subjects. For several cycles at a time all subjects were able to reduce this error to less than 0.1 deg2.

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  • Cited by (0)

    *

    Also with the Neurology Department, University of Pittsburgh Medical School.

    Present address: The Mitre Corporation, Boston. MA 01730, U.S.A.

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