
Heinen Lab
Action for Vision and Thought
Our laboratory studies eye movements to understand basic neural circuitry that moves the eyes for clear vision, and as a tool to probe mental processes that are distinctly human. Our ultimate goal is to understand the substrate of neurological function and dysfunction, leading to development of non-invasive diagnosis and therapy for brain trauma and psychiatric disorders.
Vision without eye movements
A single, static retina severely limits vision and perception- limitations that eye movements minimize. For starters, each retina “sees” ~120 deg, and both together see only ~210 degees since the eyes are roughly aligned. Eye (and head, and body) movements expand our field of view. But the retina limits vision in two other significant ways. First, high acuity vision is possible only with our tiny fovea (~4 deg). To view an entire scene at high resolution we almost continuously scan it with rapid, saccadic eye movements. Second, retinal circuitry that preprocess images before they enter the brain is sluggish, causing images to blur when they move on the retina. To preserve image clarity, vestibulo-ocular (VOR) and optokinetic (OKN) reflexes stabilize images subconsciously to compensate for self-motion, while smooth pursuit and fixation systems stabilize moving and stationary object images voluntarily. Our laboratory studies smooth pursuit, fixation and saccades.
Representative work:
- Voluntary stabilizing eye movements in normals
- Voluntary stabilizing eye movements in patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD)
- Binocular eye movement control that aids 3D vision
Eye movements are a sensitive assay of normal and damaged brain function
Representative work:
Our laboratory is also developing a computer gaming system for diagnosing mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI)
Reading the human mind with eye movements
Eye movements not only indicate what we see, but where and how we allocate our mental resources, and are therefore a sensitive, dynamic and objective readout of distinctly human thought processes. Furthermore, they are measured efficiently and non-invasively with relatively inexpensive, portable commercial devices, giving eye movement recording significant advantages over other neural imaging technologies.
Eye movements reveal bottom-up, reflexive attention allocation to sudden and salient events that our survival may depend upon. But they also indicate emotional states and numerous top-down, cognitive processes e.g. our perceptions, how we anticipate and predict, how we allocate attention and make decisions, areas our lab has contributed to. They read out high-level processes related to memory, planning, problem solving and face recognition, but our work shows they also reflect inattentive, subconscious mental processes.
Furthermore, eye movement recording has practical applications including aiding cockpit design, using gaze patterns of experts both to train novices and evaluate performance in tasks including surgery, clinical diagnosis, sports, airplane inspection, and driving. They also elucidate what people find interesting in advertising and other media - we have contributed here showing they indicate interesting frames for video summarization.
Representative work:
- Subconscious control of movement
- Eye movements for video summarization
- Anticipation and prediction
- Decision making
- Attention allocation
Tabs
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Visual Processing and Eye Movements Journal Club
Read MoreThe Visual Processing and Eye Movements Journal Club meets at noon on Tuesdays to discuss developments in the fields of vis
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Visual Processing and Eye Movements Journal Club
Read MoreThe Visual Processing and Eye Movements Journal Club meets at noon on Tuesdays to discuss developments in the fields of vis
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Visual Processing and Eye Movements Journal Club
Read MoreThe Visual Processing and Eye Movements Journal Club meets at noon on Tuesdays to discuss developments in the fields of vis
-
Visual Processing and Eye Movements Journal Club
Read MoreThe Visual Processing and Eye Movements Journal Club meets at noon on Tuesdays to discuss developments in the fields of vis
-
Visual Processing and Eye Movements Journal Club
Read MoreThe Visual Processing and Eye Movements Journal Club meets at noon on Tuesdays to discuss developments in the fields of vis
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Smith-Kettlewell Brain Imaging Center
View CenterThe Smith-Kettlewell Brain Imaging Center supports a wide variety of human brain imaging modalities, including MRI, MRI morphometry, functional MRI, fMR Iretonogrphy, fMRI dynamics, functional conn
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Characteristics of Smooth Pursuit in Individuals with Central Field Loss
This project investigates the properties of smooth pursuit eye movements in individuals with macular degeneration. Commonly believed to be a fovea-linked eye movement, smooth pursuit has not been previously investigated in individuals with central field loss, despite its importance for tracking moving objects, such as vehicles or pedestrians on a busy street.
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Go and Nogo Decision Making
The decision to make or withhold a saccade has been studied extensively using a go-nogo paradigm, but little is known about the decision process underlying pursuit of moving objects.
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Integration and Segregation
Traditionally, smooth pursuit research has explored how eye movements are generated to follow small, isolated targets that fit within the fovea.
- Brent Parsons - Postdoctoral Fellow
- Devashish Singh - Research Assistant
- Gerrit Maus - Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
- Marcus Missal - Professor of Neuroscience at UCL
- Natela Shanidze - Associate Scientist
- Sean Taffler - Founder CEO at Acooustiic
- Shun-Nan Yang - Director of Research at Vision Performance Institute, College of Optometry, Pacific University
- Supriya Ray - Assistant Professor at University of Allahabad
- Zheng Ma - Researcher, Marketing Science at SBG
- Zhenlan Jin - Researcher at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China