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Lokaverkefni til BS–prófs í sálfræði The Influence of Target Properties and the Possible Lateralization of Saccades on Saccadic Parameters Does the Size or Salience of a Target influence Latency and Peak Velocity, and are there any Left-Right Asymmetries? Þeódóra A. Thoroddsen Maí 2015 Háskóli Íslands Heilbrigðisvísindasvið Sálfræðideild ! ! ! ! ! ! The Influence of Target Properties and the Possible Lateralization of Saccades on Saccadic Parameters Does the Size or Salience of a Target influence Latency and Peak Velocity, and are there any Left-Right Asymmetries? ! ! ! Þeódóra A. Thoroddsen ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Lokaverkefni til BS-gráðu í sálfræði Leiðbeinandi: Árni Kristjánsson ! Sálfræðideild Heilbrigðisvísindasvið Háskóla Íslands Maí 2015 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Ritgerð þessi er lokaverkefni til BS-gráðu í sálfræði og er óheimilt að afrita ritgerðina á nokkurn hátt nema með leyfi rétthafa. ! © Þeódóra A. Thoroddsen, 2015 ! Prentun: Svansprent Reykjavík, Ísland 2015 Saccadic eye movements, which rapidly and accurately guide our gaze from one point of interest to another, allow us to interact with our visual environment. Latency and peak velocity are among the most studied parameters of saccades with their characteristics pretty well known. However, much less is known about how the possible lateralization of saccades and how target properties, such as size and salience, influence these parameters. In this study we conducted a systematic investigation of how the size and the salience of a target influence latencies and peak velocity of saccades, while taking into account any modulatory effects of eye dominance and target location. We investigated saccades to targets with seven different saliencies, ranging from almost white to black, and to targets with seven different sizes, ranging from 0.2° to 1.4°. The targets appeared unpredictably to the left or the right of a fixation with their centers 8° away from the screens centre. Our results showed that latencies became shorter towards larger and more salient targets, though peak velocity seemed to remain unaffected. Thus it is important to take target properties into account when investigating saccadic parameters. Our results also showed that for at least some people ocular dominance can explain left-right asymmetries in peak velocity, and thus it is also important to consider this effect before pooling data across the two saccade directions. ! ! Preface The two experiments in this Bachelor's thesis were done in collaboration with Dr. Árni Kristjánsson and Dr. Ómar I. Jóhannesson. The custom-made script Dr. Ómar I. Jóhannesson made in Matlab, to analyze the data of the eye-tracker, made this project possible. He also gave me an Icelandic guide to the statistical software R, which was of great help in the statistical analyses of this project. He showed me patience and gave me guidance, while I was getting accustomed to the software, which I am incredibly grateful for. ! Table of Contents ! Introduction …….………………..……………………………..…..…….……..…….5 Method …………………………….………………………….……….……………..10 Participants …………………….……………………….……………………….10 Research Design ……………….………………………..…..…………………..10 Stimuli ……………………………….…………………..…..…………….……10 Equipment/measuring devices ……….……………………..…..………….……11 Procedure …………………….…………………………..…….………….…….11 Statistical Analyses ………….……………………………..…..………….…….12 Results …………………………….…………………………..…..………….………13 Experiment 1 ………………………………………………………..……….…..13 Experiment 2 …………………………..…….…….………….……….…..…….15 Discussion ………………………………………………………….…..……….……17 Conclusions ……………………….…………..………….………………..…………19 References ………………………………………….……….…..…………..………..20 ! 4 All we can do, whether it is perceive, learn, think, remember or act, is made possible by the integrated activity of the nervous system cells and the body's main control centre, the brain (Carlson, 2012). In conjunction they regulate both non-conscious and voluntary processes. The brain even forms our consciousness, allowing us to think and learn. The brain has four main structures: the cerebrum, the diencephalon, the cerebellum and the brain stem. The largest main structure is the cerebrum, which is divided into left and right cerebral hemispheres by a central groove (Parker, 2007). One of the fundamental characteristics of the brain is its hemispheric asymmetry, so the question of cerebral dominance for perceptual and cognitive processes has been central to much research in cognitive psychology and neurosciences. Two long-standing examples of these asymmetries are that the left hemisphere specializes in language and the right hemisphere in spatial processing (Dien, 2008; Serrien, Ivry, & Swinnen, 2006). The cerebrum has a heavily folded pattern that is unique in each person. The grooves in the pattern outline four functional areas called frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe and the occipital lobe. The occipital lobe, which contains most of the anatomical region of the visual cortex, is almost entirely devoted to vision. This might not be surprising since vision provides the brain with more input than all the other senses combined and more than half of the information in consciousness seems to enter through the eyes (Parker, 2007). The sequence of vision is in short as follows: when rays of light enter the eye, they are refracted by the cornea and fine-focused by the transparent lens. Then they go through the vitreous humour and shine an upside-down image onto the retina lining. The retina contains over 120 million cone cells and 7 million rod cells, which convert the light energy into nerve signals. Rods do not differentiate colors like cones, but they are light sensitive. The fovea is a small, central pit responsible for sharp central vision, where the cones are closely packed. Intermediate retinal cells connect the rods and cones to the optic nerve, which transmits the image to the visual cortex where it is turned upright. The optic chiasm is a crossover junction at the base of the brain, where the left and the right optic nerves converge before traveling to the visual cortex (Parker, 2007). ! 5 ! Each eye sees a slightly different view of what is in front of them, since the eyes are set apart. These views become more different as the object gets closer. The visual centers of the brain use this comparison to determine the distance of the object. The combination into a single image is called binocular vision. The total field of binocular vision is 180-200 degrees wide, giving each eye a visual field of 140-150 degrees. They overlap by about 100 degrees directly in front, which allows the visual cortex to compare them to estimate the depth and distance of the object (Parker, 2007). When defining the ocular/sighting dominance of a person, that person is asked to align a target with a distant point and choose the eye that is better suited for the task (Mapp, Ono, & Barbeito, 2003). When exploring the visual field, the eyes move to locate, see and track stimuli in the environment. Saccadic eye movements or saccades, which rapidly and accurately guide the gaze from one point of interest in the visual field to another, allow us to interact with our visual environment. They are used to fixate on a target that is stable in the visual field and they hold the object on the fovea while we shift our fixation from one point to another. Saccadic movements can be horizontal, vertical or oblique. They are described by their latency (the time before their execution), their metrics (their direction and amplitude), and their dynamic properties (their velocity, acceleration, etc.). Smooth pursuit eye movements, on the other hand, are used to track targets that are moving by keeping them on the fovea (Leichnetz and Goldberg, 1987; MacAvoy, Gottlieb and Bruce, 1991). In contrast to elicited saccades, smooth pursuit eye movements have low velocities, proceed smoothly and usually travel ipsilaterally to the stimulated area of the brain (MacAvoy, Gottlieb and Bruce, 1991). The brain processes this visually-guided behavior after the corresponding visual structures receive the signals from the retina (Boch, Fischer and Ramsperger, 1984; Boch and Fischer, 1986). Saccades appear to be quite stereotypical behaviors which has led to attempts to characterize the saccadic waveform with a limited number of parameters, with the main ones being velocity, amplitude and duration (Collewijn, Erkelens, & Steinman, 1988). ! 6 Peak velocity marks the highest velocity that the eye reaches during a saccade. The relation between peak velocity and amplitude, or the “main sequence,” has been thought of as a linear relationship, where an increase in peak velocity is a function of saccadic amplitude for smaller saccades with a softer saturation (Bahill, Clark & Stark, 1975). The actual value of peak velocity and the level of saturation can still vary greatly (Bahill, Brockenbrough, & Troost, 1981; Boghen et al., 1974; Baloh et al., 1975). The source of this problem is probably the variety in methods of recording and data analysis. Among components that influence peak velocity are the directions of the saccades. Adducting saccades tend to have higher peak velocities than abducting ones. Centripedal (towards the primary position) saccades also tend to have higher peak velocities than centrifugal ones (Collewijn, Erkelens, & Steinman, 1988). The latency, sometimes called reaction time, of a saccade is the time from the target onset to the initiation of a saccade. The elaboration of visual information, at different stages of the cortical and subcortical level, takes time and can be reflected in the reaction time of a saccade (Liversedge, Gilchrist, & Everling, 2011). The minimum saccadic reaction time can be estimated by considering the neural delays in the shortest pathway from the retina, through the cortex and down to the oculomotor plant. Break of previous fixation, decision making and computation of size and direction are elements of the saccadic reaction time process. Delay times, due to the type of stimulus, also have to be taken into account (Boch, Fischer and Ramsperger, 1984; Boch and Fischer, 1986). The strength and type of a stimulus can have a great deal of impact, where the high- contrast stimuli signals travel through the sensory system more quickly, resulting in less sensory delay before the rise-to-threshold can start, than low-contrast stimuli. Likewise, chromatic stimuli tend to elicit longer latency than luminance stimuli. Retinal eccentricity also affects latency, with latency increasing as the target is located further from the fovea. This function is actually U-shaped, meaning that the shortest latencies would be for targets within about 2° and 10° from the fovea and relatively longer ones within 1° and 2° (Liversedge, Gilchrist, & Everling, 2011). Target location probabilities (Liu et al., 2010) and attentional load (Kristjánsson, Chen, & Nakayama, 2001) are also factors that might affect saccadic reaction times. 7 Saccades have been classified as regular saccades, express saccades and microsaccades. Regular saccades have reaction times between 150-300 ms with the variation of about 20 ms or more. Microsaccades share the same characteristics as regular saccades but have very low amplitude and are very short. Express saccades are minimal latency saccades that are 70-80 ms in monkeys and around 100 ms in humans. They are reflexive, goal directed and occur if a previous fixation point disappears some time before a new target emerges, leaving a gap between them (Boch, Fischer and Ramsperger, 1984; Boch and Fischer, 1986). When a central fixation point is turned off before the peripheral target appears, shorter reaction times can be produced compared to when the fixation point overlaps with the target (Fischer & Ramsperger, 1984). If the gap between the disappearance of the fixation point and the appearance of the target is 200 ms or more, saccadic latency is about 150 ms. If the fixation point disappears and the target appears simultaneously, latency increases to about 200 ms and if an overlap occurs, latency increases to about 250 ms. This has been named the “gap effect” (Saslow, 1967). The emphasis in this thesis is on regular saccades, which can be classified as anti- and prosaccades. A prosaccade is made when a peripherally stimulus presents itself and you saccade towards it. For example if a stimulus appears 8° to the right of a fixation point, and you saccade towards it, you would be making a prosaccade. The amplitude of the saccade would be 8° if the stimulus appears 8° away from the fixation point. An antisaccade is a saccade in the opposite direction of a prosaccade that still has the same amplitude. In the case above an antisaccade would be a saccade 8° to the left of the fixation point (Jóhannesson, 2012). Latencies of antisaccades are usually longer than of prosaccades, but several factors have been found which can slow prosaccades and speed antisaccades (see Kristjánsson, Vanderbroucke & Driver, 2004; Kristjánsson, Chen & Nakayama, 2001; Liu et al. 2010). Earlier studies about the characteristics of saccades have shown that rightward saccades have shorter latencies than leftward saccades, indicating that there is a structural determinant for asymmetries in saccadic latencies (Pirozzolo & Rayner, 1980; Hutton & Palet, 1986). However, the view of hemispheric specialization in saccadic control remains under debate, since the asymmetry in saccade latency has not always been demonstrated. 8 A study by Weber and Fischer (1995) demonstrated leftward and rightward saccadic latency differences for reactive saccades, but they were only elicited by a gap of 100 or 200 ms indicating that it had something to do with the different proportion of express saccades. A later study by Honda (2002) failed to demonstrate asymmetry in saccade latency in data averaged over subjects, but managed to find it at the individual level in tasks involving reactive or voluntary saccades. Yet other studies have not managed to find any differences in latencies (De Clerck, Crevits, & Van Maele, 2000; Constantinidis et al., 2003). The potential role of eye dominance has also been raised. One study (Lazarev & Kirenskaya, 2008) showed shorter latencies for leftward saccades in a right-eyed group but no differences in a left-eyed group, yet another (Kolesnikova, Tereshchenko, Latanov, & Shulgovskii, 2010) showed shorter latencies for leftward saccades in a lefteyed group but less clear results in a right-eyed group. The possible occurrence of spatial asymmetry in other parameters than latency has not yet been fully considered. A study by Vergilino-Perez et al. (2012) tackled this problem and consistently showed that both right-eyed groups made faster rightward saccades, whereas both left-eyed groups made faster leftward saccades, indicating that the saccades directed in the ipsilateral direction relative to the dominant eye sometimes had faster peak velocities. This suggests that eye dominance is the main factor in this asymmetry. As previous studies they found no evidence in favor of left-right asymmetries in saccade latency. It is difficult to draw conclusions about the possible lateralization of saccades since there is such lack of consistent results, and thus the question still remains of whether hemispheric specialization exists for the saccadic system. Latency and peak velocity are among the most studied parameters of saccadic eye movements with their characteristics pretty well know. However, much less is known about how target properties, such as size and salience, influence them. Thus, in this study we conducted a systematic investigation of how the size and the salience of a target influence latencies and peak velocity of reactive saccades, while taking into account any modulatory effects of eye dominance and target location. ! 9 Method Participants Participants in both experiments were unpaid volunteers naive to the aim of the experiment. They were students of psychology at the University of Iceland and received course credit for participating. All reported normal or corrected to normal vision. The first experiment consisted of 10 participants (7 females and 3 males) with the mean age of 24.8, ranging from 22 to 43 years. Two had a dominant left eye and eight had a dominant right eye. The second experiment consisted of 10 participants (9 females and 1 male) with the mean age of 26, ranging from 22 to 45 years. Four had a dominant left eye and six had a dominant right eye. ! Research Design Two within-subject design experiments were conducted. In the first one the independent variables were the size of the stimulus, which had seven levels ranging from 0.2° to 1.4°, the ocular dominance and the target location. The dependent variables were the reaction time and peak velocity of the observers. In the second one the independent variables were the salience of the stimulus, which had seven levels ranging form almost white to black, the ocular dominance and the target location. The dependent variables were also the reaction times and peak velocity of the observers. ! Stimuli In both experiments observers fixated on a 0.3° dot in the center of the display that disappeared after 1000 – 1300 ms. The targets then appeared unpredictably to the left or the right of the fixation with their centers 8° away from the screens center. Each target lasted for 300 ms, after the eye fixated on it, before disappearing. In experiment 1 the target varied randomly in size between 0.2°, 0.4°, 0.6°, 0.8°, 1.0°, 1.2° and 1.4°. The RGB value of the screen was [255, 255, 255] and the value of the target was [0, 0, 0]. In experiment 2 the size of the target was 1.0° and it varied in brightness form almost white, on a white background, to black. The RGB value of the screen was [255, 255, 255] and the value of the target randomly changed between [0, 0, 0], [40, 40, 40], [80, 80, 80], [120, 120, 120], [160, 160, 160], [200, 200, 200] and [240, 240, 240]. ! 10 Equipment/measuring devices In both experiments a high speed (250 Hz, one datapoint every fourth ms) monocular video eye-tracker from Cambridge research Systems was used. The spatial accuracy of the tracker is about 0.125°-0.25°, with the horizontal range being ±40° and the vertical being ±20°. The eye-tracker uses infrared light (930 nm), that comes from 2 diodes identically positioned on each side of the infrared camera, which provides two sets of the first Purkinje image, each opposite to the corresponding diode, to keep track of the gaze. The eye-tracker software computes the length from the centre of the pupil to both of the first Purkinje image changes, when the eye rotates, to compute the point of gaze. Chin and forehead rests were used to minimize head movements, even though the eyetracker can correct those movements up to ±10 mm (Cambridge Research Systems, 2006). The viewing distance in both experiments was 53 cm. Both experiments were run on the same Dell computer. The Intel Core Duo is 2.33 GHz, the working memory is 1.95 GB and the operating system is Microsoft Windows XP 2002. In both experiments a 100 Hz, 19” Hansol CRT monitor (model 920D with maximal resolution of 1280 x 1024 px) was used. When a target emerges on the screen a signal is sent immediately to the eye-tracker, which is used as a timestamp for when the target appeared, so that the x and y coordinates of the gaze are known with 4 ms precision. The main software used was Matlab (v. 7.11.0, 2010b, 32 bit). The experiments were programmed there and a custom-made program was used to analyze the eye-tracker data. PsychToolBox was used to display the targets and keep track of when they emerged and when they disappeared. A toolbox from Cambridge Research System (2006) for Matlab was used to provide information about the x and y coordinates. ! Procedure In both experiments participants were led to a sound-proof booth with an eye-tracker and inquired about their dominant eye. The eye-tracker was then adjusted accordingly and the movement of the dominant eye of each participant was recorded while they used their binocular vision. ! 11 Observers were required to fixate on a small dot at the center of the display for 1000-1300 ms, after which the fixation point disappeared. Targets appeared unpredictably to the left or the right of the fixation with their centers 8° away from the screens centre and remained on the screen for 300 ms. Participants were asked to respond as quickly and accurately as possible, and to return their fixation to the center as soon as the target disappeared. If a saccade landed outside a circular region of 1.2°, centered at the center of the screen, a warning message appeared telling the observer to look directly at the center. The first experiment assessed latencies and peak velocity of various target sizes, ranging from 0.2° to 1.4° in seven steps, which appeared at random after the fixation point disappeared. The second experiment assessed latencies and peak velocity of various target saliency, ranging from almost white to black in seven steps, which also appeared at random after the fixation point disappeared. The session in both experiments consisted of 4 blocks, with 140 trials per block, and lasted about 30 to 40 minutes. Participants were told they could take breaks between blocks as needed. ! Statistical Analyses A custom-made script was written by Dr. Ómar I. Jóhannesson in Matlab to analyze the data of the eye-tracker. The statistical program R 3.1.3, and its corresponding libraries, were used in the statistical analyses. If a saccade latency was shorter than 100 ms, it was considered anticipatory instead of stimulus driven and thus excluded from all analyses. The mean of each task for each participant was computed and the saccades that deviated more than 3 standard deviations (SD) from the corresponding mean were excluded and thought of as the upper limit of valid saccades. The dominant and non-dominant eyes had no performance differences, so the data for the eyes were combined. In both experiments repeated measure ANOVAs, with the aov function, were used to compare differences in the dependent measures with respect to the levels of the experimental conditions. Tukey's post hoc tests were performed based on significant main effects; pvalues < .05 were considered statistically significant. The target location on the screen (left or right) were also compared, with a paired t-test, to see if the location might influence the dependent measures. ! 12 Results Trials with saccadic latencies shorter than 100 ms and longer than 3 SD from the mean, for each participant and task, where excluded from all analyses (1.4% of the data). Repeated measure ANOVAs were used in both experiments, along with Tukey's posthoc comparison when appropriate. Two sample t-tests were used to see if there were any performance differences for the dominant and non-dominant eye, and paired t-tests were used to see whether the target location had any influences. ! Experiment 1 The main effect of the seven target sizes (0.2°, 0.4°, 0.6°, 0.8°, 1.0°, 1.2°, 1.4°) on the mean reaction time was statistically significant (F(6,54) = 6.71; p < .001), with Tukey's post-hoc comparisons indicating that the 0.2° target size had a significantly longer latency than the rest at p < .001. Comparisons between the other six target sizes were not significant. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Figure 1. The mean reaction time of the seven target sizes. Latencies became shorter towards larger target sizes, with the 0.2° target size having the longest latency (M = 176 ms). 13 The dominant and non-dominant eyes had no significant performance differences in reaction time (t(8) = .41; p = .692) and the target location did not significantly influence the reaction time (t(9) = -.43; p = .674). The main effect of the seven target sizes on peak velocity was not significant (F(6, 54) = .32; p = .926), where peak velocity varied from 338°/sec to 340°/sec, and the dominant and non-dominant eyes had no significant performance differences in peak velocity either (t(8) = 1.02; p = .336). The target location, on the other hand, did significantly influence peak velocity (t(9) = -3.64; p = .005), where peak velocity became higher when the target was to the right of the screen (355°/sec) compared to the left of the screen (324°/sec). When the observers were separated by their dominant eye, the peak velocity difference by target location was not significant for the left-eyed group (t(1) = -.55; p = .679), but it was significant for the right-eyed group (t(7) = -3.99; p = .005). No interaction effect was found between the target location and the size of the target for the right-eyed group (F(6, 49) = .30; p = .935). ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Figure 2. Peak velocity by target location in the right-eyed group. Peak velocity became higher when the target was to the right of the screen (352°/sec) compared to the left of the screen (318°/sec). 14 Experiment 2 The main effect of the seven target saliencies ([0, 0, 0], [40, 40, 40], [80, 80, 80], [120, 120, 120], [160, 160, 160], [200, 200, 200], [240, 240, 240]) on the mean reaction time was significant (F(6,54) = 12.25; p < .001). Tukey's post-hoc comparisons of the seven target saliencies indicate that the least salient target ([0, 0, 0]) had a significantly longer latency than the rest at p < .001, but comparisons between the other six target saliencies were not significant. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Figure 3. The mean reaction time of the seven target saliencies. Latencies became shorter towards more salient targets, where “1” represents the least salient target ([0, 0, 0]) and “7” the most salient target ([240, 240, 240]), with the least salient target having the longest latency (M = 186 ms). ! The dominant and non-dominant eyes had no significant performance differences in reaction time (t(8) = -1.82; p = .106) and the target location did not significantly influence it either (t(9) = -1.19; p = .264). ! 15 Finally, the main effect of the seven target saliencies on peak velocity was significant (F(6,54) = 3.47; p = .006), but Tukey's post-hoc comparisons of the seven target saliencies did not yield any significant differences in peak velocity, so the difference was deemed inconclusive. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Figure 4. Peak velocity by target salience, where “1” represents the least salient target ([0, 0, 0]) and “7” the most salient target ([240, 240, 240]). Peak velocity varies from ! 336°/sec to 347°/sec between the seven target saliencies. The dominant and non-dominant eyes had no significant performance differences in peak velocity (t(8) = -1.83; p = .105) and whether the target was to the left or to the right on the screen did not significantly influence peak velocity (t(9) = .13; p = .899). ! 16 Discussion Latency, velocity, amplitude and duration are among the most studied parameters of saccadic eye movements, so their characteristics are pretty well known (Collewijn, Erkelens, & Steinman, 1988). However, much less is known about the influence of target properties on these parameters. The main purpose of his study was to conduct a systematic investigation of how target properties, like size and salience, influence latencies and peak velocity of reactive saccades. The strength and type of a stimulus have been shown to have an impact on latency, where for example high-contrast or luminance stimuli have less sensory delay than low-contrast or chromatic stimuli (Liversedge, Gilchrist, & Everling, 2011). In our study we investigated saccades to targets with seven different saliencies ranging from almost white, on a white background, to black and to targets with seven different sizes ranging from 0.2° to 1.4°. Our results showed that latencies became shorter towards larger target sizes, with the smallest (0.2°) target having the longest mean latency (176 ms), and also became shorter towards more salient targets, with the least salient one having the longest mean latency (186 ms). However, our results showed barely any differences in peak velocity for both experiment 1 (the size study), where the peak velocity varied from 338°/sec to 340°/sec, and experiment 2 (the salience study), where the peak velocity varied from 336°/sec to 347°/sec. Thus peak velocity seems to remain unaffected by the size and salience of a stimulus. These results stress the importance of knowledge about the effects of stimulus properties on saccadic parameters for future investigations of these parameters. It has been difficult to draw conclusions about the possible lateralization of saccades since there is such lack of consistent results (Pirozzolo & Rayner, 1980; Hutton & Palet, 1986; Weber & Fischer, 1995; Honda, 2002). The question still remains of whether spatial asymmetry in parameters like latency and peak velocity exists for the saccadic system, so we decided to see if eye dominance and target location had any modulatory effects on peak velocity and latency in our study. As many previous studies (De Clerck, Crevits, & Van Maele, 2000; Constantinidis et al., 2003; Vergilino-Perez et al., 2012) no modulatory effects were found for latency in neither experiment. No performance differences were found between the dominant and non-dominant eyes, nor any influences of target location on peak velocity in experiment 2 (the salience study). 17 The target location did, on the other hand, influence peak velocity in experiment 1 (the size study), where peak velocity became higher when the target was to the right of the screen compared to the left of the screen. With further inspection, the right-eyed group had higher peak velocity when the target was to the right of the screen indicating that the saccades directed in the ipsilateral direction relative to the dominant eye have faster peak velocities, which is consistent with the results of Vergilino-Perez et al. (2012). However, the left-eyed group showed no differences in peak velocity, which might have been due to the fact that only 2 out of the 10 participants were left-eyed. A future study might include more participants with a more even division of ocular dominance. Another reason why only a part of the observers showed this pattern might be because some people show clear ocular dominance, whereas other people may present an alternating balance between both eyes (Mapp, Ono, & Barbeito, 2003; Seijas et al., 2007). This study shows that at least for some people ocular dominance can explain this left-right asymmetry in peak velocity, so it appears important from a methodological point of view to consider the effect of ocular dominance before pooling data across the two saccade directions, as is commonly done. ! 18 Conclusions We conclude that latency can be influenced by target properties such as size and salience, while peak velocity seems to remain unaffected, and thus it is important to take these properties into account when investigating saccadic parameters. We also conclude that at least for some people ocular dominance can explain left-right asymmetries in peak velocity, and thus it is also important to consider the effect of ocular dominance before pooling data across the two saccade directions. ! ! ! 19 References Bahill, A. T., Brockenbrough, A., & Troost, B. T. (1981). Variability and development of a normative data base for saccadic eye movements. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 21(1), 116-125. Bahill, A. T., Clark, M. R., & Stark, L. (1975). The main sequence, a tool for studying human eye movements. Mathematical Biosciences, 24(3), 191-204. Baloh, R. W., Sills, A. W., Kumley, W. E., & Honrubia, V. (1975). Quantitative measurement of saccade amplitude, duration, and velocity. Neurology, 25(11), 1065-1065. Boch, R., & Fischer, B. (1986). Further observations on the occurrence of expresssaccades in the monkey. Experimental Brain Research, 63(3), 487-494. Boch, R., Fischer, B., & Ramsperger, E. (1984). 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