Our laboratory studies how visual perception and cognition guide the smooth pursuit eye movement system. The goal of our research is to provide information about basic neural mechanisms that drive this system that will aid in the diagnosis and treatment of vision and eye movement disorders. Basic knowledge about brain function obtained through this work should generalize to help better understand devastating disorders that affect movement and perception such as schizophrenia, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's diseases.
Tabs
Journal Articles
. (2021). A covered eye fails to follow an object moving in depth. Scientific Reports, 11. http://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-90371-8
. (2019). Human Eye Movements Reveal Video Frame Importance. Computer, 52(5), 48–57. http://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2019.2903246
. (2019). A common mechanism modulates saccade timing during pursuit and fixation. Journal Of Neurophysiology .
. (2018). Foveated convolutional neural networks for video summarization. Multimedia Tools And Applications, 77(22), 29245-29267. http://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-018-5953-1
. (2018). Choosing a foveal goal recruits the saccadic system during smooth pursuit. Journal Of Neurophysiology , 120(2), 489-496. http://doi.org/ 10.1152/jn.00418.2017
. (2017). A Subconscious Interaction between Fixation and Anticipatory Pursuit. Journal Of Neuroscience, 37(47), 11424-11430. http://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2186-17.2017
. (2017). Illusory motion reveals velocity matching, not foveation, drives smooth pursuit of large objects. Journal Of Vision, 17(12).
. (2017). Monocular and Binocular Smooth Pursuit in Central Field Loss. Vision Research.
. (2016). Smooth pursuit eye movements in patients with macular degeneration. Journal Of Vision, 16, 1.
. (2015). A foveal target increases catch-up saccade frequency during smooth pursuit. Journal Of Neurophysiology, jn–00774.
. (2015). A mechanism for decision rule discrimination by supplementary eye field neurons. Experimental Brain Research, 233, 459–476.
. (2015). Allocation of attention during pursuit of large objects is no different than during fixation. Journal Of Vision, 15, 9–9.
. (2015). Different time scales of motion integration for anticipatory smooth pursuit and perceptual adaptation. Journal Of Vision, 15, 16.
. (2014). Contrasting the roles of the supplementary and frontal eye fields in ocular decision making. Journal Of Neurophysiology, 111, 2644–2655.
. (2014). Motion Integration for Ocular Pursuit Does Not Hinder Perceptual Segregation of Moving Objects. The Journal Of Neuroscience, 34, 5835–5841.
. (2011). Flexible interpretation of a decision rule by supplementary eye field neurons. Journal Of Neurophysiology, 106, 2992–3000.
. (2010). The default allocation of attention is broadly ahead of smooth pursuit. Journal Of Vision, 10, 7.
. (2008). The effects of microstimulation of the dorsomedial frontal cortex on saccade latency. Journal Of Neurophysiology, 99, 1857–1870.
. (2007). Oculomotor Hide and Seek: Pursuing an Accelerating Target Behind an Occluder. Focus on “Target Acceleration Can Be Extracted and Represented Within the Predictive Drive to Ocular Pursuit”. Journal Of Neurophysiology, 98, 1073–1074.
. (2006). An oculomotor decision process revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging. The Journal Of Neuroscience, 26, 13515–13522.
. (2006). Anticipatory movement timing using prediction and external cues. The Journal Of Neuroscience, 26, 4519–4525.
. (2005). Properties of saccades generated as a choice response. Experimental Brain Research, 162, 278–286.
. (2005). Timing and velocity randomization similarly affect anticipatory pursuit. Journal Of Vision, 5, 1.
. (2005). Trajectory interpretation by supplementary eye field neurons during ocular baseball. Journal Of Neurophysiology, 94, 1385–1391.
. (2004). Supplementary eye fields stimulation facilitates anticipatory pursuit. Journal Of Neurophysiology, 92, 1257–1262.
. (2003). Perceptual and oculomotor evidence of limitations on processing accelerating motion. Journal Of Vision, 3, 698-709.
. (2003). Smooth pursuit eye movements: Recent advances. The Visual Neurosciences (Chalupa Lm, Werner Js, Eds), 333–334.
. (2001). Facilitation of smooth pursuit initiation by electrical stimulation in the supplementary eye fields. Journal Of Neurophysiology, 86, 2413–2425.
. (1997). Single-neuron activity in the dorsomedial frontal cortex during smooth-pursuit eye movements to predictable target motion. Visual Neuroscience, 14, 853–865.
. (1996). The function of the cerebellar uvula in monkey during optokinetic and pursuit eye movements: single-unit responses and lesion effects. Experimental Brain Research, 110, 1–14.
. (1995). Single neuron activity in the dorsomedial frontal cortex during smooth pursuit eye movements. Experimental Brain Research, 104, 357–361.
. (1992). Adaptation of saccades and fixation to bilateral foveal lesions in adult monkey. Vision Research, 32, 365–373.
. (1992). Cerebellar uvula involvement in visual motion processing and smooth pursuit control in monkey. Annals Of The New York Academy Of Sciences, 656, 775–782.
. (1991). Characteristics of nystagmus evoked by electrical stimulation of the uvular/nodular lobules of the cerebellum in monkey. Journal Of Vestibular Research: Equilibrium & Orientation, 2, 235–245.
. (1991). Generation of smooth-pursuit eye movements: neuronal mechanisms and pathways. Neuroscience Research, 11, 79–107.
. (1991). Recovery of visual responses in foveal V1 neurons following bilateral foveal lesions in adult monkey. Experimental Brain Research, 83, 670–674.
Conference Papers
. (1994). Evidence of a timing mechanism for predictive smooth pursuit in frontal cortex. In Contemporary Oculomotor and Vestibular Research: A Tribute to David A Robinson.
Presentations/Posters
. (2016). Gaze Changes from Binocular to Monocular Viewing during Smooth Pursuit in Macular Degeneration. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science.
. (2016). Do we foveate targets during smooth pursuit?.
. (2015). Evaluation of Smooth Pursuit in Individuals with Central Field Loss. European Conference on Eye Movements. Vienna, Austria: Vienna, Austria.
Other Publications
. (1993). Patterns of eye movement adaptation to foveal lesions in adult primates. In Walker, M. F., FitzGibbon, E. J., & Goldberg, M. E. (1994). Contemporary Oculomotor and Vestibular Research: A Tribute to David A Robinson.
Active
Active
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.
Completed
Completed
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. Prevailing models describe pursuit as a feedback system that responds reactively to a moving stimulus. However, situations often arise in which it is disadvantageous to pursue, and humans can decide not to pursue an object just because it moves. This project explores mechanisms underlying the decision to pursue or maintain fixation. Our paradigm, ocular baseball, involves a target that moves from the periphery toward a central zone called the "plate". Observers must pursue the target if it intersects the plate (strike), or maintain fixation if it bypasses the plate (ball). We have revealed a neural substrate underlying this decision process in an eye movement region in frontal cortex, the supplementary eye fields (SEF). Our preliminary human behavioral data has revealed several novel factors that affect the decision to pursue or fixate. One factor is priming, in which past experience influences current behavior. Preceding strike trials caused observers to commit more pursuit errors on ball trials, while preceding ball trials rarely caused fixation errors on strike trials. This implies that priming in the pursuit system is stronger than priming in the fixation system, although preceding fixation trials still appear to affect pursuit dynamics by increasing pursuit latency and decreasing open loop gain. The effect of priming is strong when strike and ball trials are randomized, but can be overcome to a degree by knowledge of trial sequence, such as when strike and ball trials alternate predictably. This is surprising, since in previous work involving visual search tasks, priming dictated behavior even when trial sequence was known. It is possible that the go-nogo rule involving the plate activates a cognitive region of the brain; however, even when the rule is removed and simple pursuit and fixation trials alternate predictably, trial sequence knowledge helps pursuit. This suggests that the fixation mechanism also plays a role in overcoming priming, since removing fixation trials and simply alternating the direction of pursuit renders priming dominant once again. In addition, we have evidence for an impulsive aspect to pursuit that is consistent with the reactive, motion-driven models. The fixation mechanism, which appears to be rooted in cognitive circuitry, then moderates the pursuit impulse. These projects are ongoing in the laboratory.
Completed
Integration and Segregation
Traditionally, smooth pursuit research has explored how eye movements are generated to follow small, isolated targets that fit within the fovea. Objects in a natural scene, however, are often larger and extend to peripheral retina. They also have components that move in different directions or at different speeds (e.g., wings, legs). To generate a single velocity command for smooth pursuit, motion information from the components must be integrated. Simultaneously, it may be necessary to attend to features of the object while pursuing it. Our goal is to understand attention allocation during pursuit of natural objects. In some experiments, we use random dot cinematograms (RDCs) as pursuit stimuli. Our RDCs consist of a pattern of randomly-spaced dots that usually move at a single velocity and in the same direction. We find that while pursuit of a foveal target is attentive and hinders performance on simultaneous attention-demanding tasks, pursuing an RDC improves pursuit and reduces saccades, and also improves performance on secondary tasks. This indicates that large stimuli release attention from pursuit, facilitating feature inspection. In other experiments, a multiple object tracking (MOT) cloud is pursued. The MOT cloud consists of a number of dots that move in random directions relative to one another in a virtual window that translates across the screen. When observers attentively tracked the targets within an MOT cloud, simultaneous pursuit of the cloud did not hinder performance on the attentive tracking task, suggesting that spatio-temporal integration of individual spot velocities for pursuit is also inattentive and leaves attention free for the segregation process.
Contact Information
2318 Fillmore St.
San Francisco, California 94115
Room #
406
Email:
heinen@ski.org
Office Phone:
(415) 345-2101