Scientific

Abstract: Developments in wearable eye tracking devices make them an attractive solution for studies of eye movements during naturalistic head/body motion. However, before these “systems” potential can be fully realized, a thorough assessment of potential sources of error is needed. First, I will discuss three possible sources of error for the Pupil Core eye-tracking goggles: camera motion during head/body motion, choice of calibration marker configuration, and eye movement estimation. Focusing on a clinical population, loss of the central retina, including the fovea, can lead to a loss of visual acuity and oculomotor deficits and thus have profound effects on day-to-day tasks. Recent advances in head-mounted, 3D eye tracking have allowed researchers to extend studies in this population to a broader set of daily tasks and more naturalistic behaviors and settings. However, decreases in fixational stability, multiple fixational loci, and their uncertain role as oculomotor references, as well as eccentric fixation all provide additional challenges for calibration and collection of eye movement data. I will show decreases in calibration accuracy relative to fixation eccentricity and discuss a robotic calibration and validation tool we are developing in the lab that may allow for future developments of calibration and tracking algorithms designed with this population in mind. https://ski.org/users/natela-shanidze  

Abstract – Most real-world hearing occurs in acoustically cluttered, reverberant environments, making perceptual segregation of sound sources critical. Reverberation signal carries environmental spatial information of potential use to blind and visually impaired persons. Understanding the neural mechanisms of auditory scene analysis can help identify points of failure in high-level hearing loss and guide behavioral or technological therapeutic interventions. During this talk, I will present some preliminary results of an EEG experiment describing the neural representation of statistical regularities of real-world reverberant environments by using Multivariate Pattern Analysis (MVPA). https://ski.org/users/haydee-garcia-lazaro

Abstract – Although programming may have once been a niche skill, the abundance of coding languages, environments, and libraries that are geared for practically any scientific pursuit has made programming an indispensable tool in any field. Being able to code one’s own software tools, whether to run or automate experiments, perform analysis, visualize results, etc., is an empowering and invaluable skill. For those who pick up coding outside of a CS department or later in their careers, they may not be aware of some of the common “best practices” in software development. Here will be presented an introduction to source control, and the specific web-based repository host for sharing and tracking code called GitHub. In addition to describing just what Git is, I’ll cover why it might be useful for you and/or your lab, and how to create and utilize a repository on GitHub.

Abstract – Despite that we have two eyes, dominant models of voluntary eye movement control except a single input, and issue a single conjugate command, in accordance with Hering’s Law. When midline gaze shifts are required, Hering postulated that another single command generates vergence. Many natural gaze shifts are not simply restricted to the frontoparallel plane, or the midline. Hering resolved this by postulating that conjugate and vergence commands simply sum. These “classic” theories have guided basic oculomotor research and strabismus intervention for over a century, but have recently been challenged with new data from an occluded eye (Chandna et al., 2021). I will present a new model of binocular control that can explain occluded eye data, and can generate other human oculomotor behavior that challenges existing models. The model consists of a fast, binocular conjugate component that is modulated by slow, independent controllers on each eye. The independent controllers can use interpreted sensory information to generate eye movements even when sensory evidence is incomplete. https://ski.org/users/steve-heinen

Abstract – Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most prevalent cause of central visual field loss. Since the high-acuity fovea (the oculomotor locus) is often impaired in AMD, people afflicted with the condition typically have difficulties with smooth pursuit eye movements. In this brown-bag, I will detail two possible causes for deficits in smooth pursuit in AMD: 1) noisy sensory input due to objects disappearing into the scotoma, and 2) oculomotor instability due to the use of an eccentric preferred retinal locus (PRL). To address the first cause, we designed an experiment to categorize the noise introduced when the target of pursuit is hidden by the scotoma in AMD. We presented control participants with a Brownian motion display with an increased dot density region into which the target could disappear and compared pursuit during this disappearance with AMD participants. In addition to showing preliminary results, I present a plan to categorize the effects of oculomotor instability on the pursuit in AMD as well as a candidate model to integrate the two proposed causes of pursuit deficits in AMD, based on Bayesian frameworks recently used to describe predictive smooth pursuit in individuals with healthy vision. https://ski.org/users/jason-rubinstein