TY  - JOUR
A1  - Engbert, Ralf
A1  - Mergenthaler, Konstantin
T1  - Microsaccades are triggered by low retinal image slip
N2  - Even during visual fixation of a stationary target, our eyes perform rather erratic miniature movements, which represent a random walk. These "fixational" eye movements counteract perceptual fading, a consequence of fast adaptation of the retinal receptor systems to constant input. The most important contribution to fixational eye movements is produced by microsaccades; however, a specific function of microsaccades only recently has been found. Here we show that the occurrence of microsaccades is correlated with low retinal image slip approximate to 200 ms before microsaccade onset. This result suggests that microsaccades are triggered dynamically, in contrast to the current view that microsaccades are randomly distributed in time characterized by their rate-of-occurrence of 1 to 2 per second. As a result of the dynamic triggering mechanism, individual microsaccade rate can be predicted by the fractal dimension of trajectories. Finally, we propose a minimal computational model for the dynamic triggering of microsaccades
Y1  - 2006
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/11949
UR  - http://www.pnas.org/
SN  - 0027-8424
ER  -