Linking physiology with behaviour: Functional specialisation of the visual field is reflected in gaze patterns during visual search

Pflugshaupt, Tobias; Wartburg, Roman von; Wurtz, Pascal; Chaves, Silvia; Déruaz, Anouk; Nyffeler, Thomas; Arx, Sebastian von; Luethi, Mathias; Cazzoli, Dario; Mueri, René M.

doi:10.1016/j.visres.2008.10.021

Cited by 22 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Many studies have reported vertical anisotropies in the efficacy of visual inputs, the most common being a preference for the lower visual field, as in Experiment 1 in the present study on the tOFR (e.g., Amenedo, Pazo-Alvarez & Cadaveira, 2007; Levine & McAnany, 2005; Pflugshaupt, von Wartburg, Wurtz, Chaves, Deruaz, Nyffeler, von Arx, Luethi, Cazzoli & Mueri, 2009). This might be linked to the overrepresentation of the lower visual field—a rich source of optic flow signals—in the geniculo-striate projections and MT (Maunsell & Van Essen, 1983b; Van Essen, Maunsell & Bixby, 1981; Van Essen, Newsome & Maunsell, 1984).…”

Section: General Discussion: Neural Mediationsupporting

confidence: 56%

The initial torsional Ocular Following Response (tOFR) in humans: A response to the total motion energy in the stimulus?

2009

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We recorded the initial torsional Ocular Following Responses (tOFRs) elicited at short latency by visual images that occupied the frontal plane and rotated about the lines of sight. Using 1-D radial gratings, the local spatio-temporal characteristics of these tOFRs closely resembled those we previously reported for the hOFRs to horizontal motion with 1-D vertical gratings. When the 1-D radial grating was subdivided into a number of concentric annuli, each with the same radial thickness, tOFRs were less than predicted from the sum of the responses to the individual annuli: spatial normalization. However, the normalization was much weaker than that which we previously reported for the hOFRs. Further, when the number, thickness and contrast of these concentric annuli were varied systematically, the latency and magnitude of the tOFRs were well described by single monotonic functions when plotted against the product of the Total Area of the Annuli and the Square of their Michelson Contrast (“A*C 2”), consistent with the hypothesis that the onset and magnitude of the initial tOFR are determined by the Total Motion Energy in the stimulus. When our previously published hOFR data were plotted against A*C 2, a single monotonic function sufficed to describe the latency but not the magnitude.

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Section: General Discussion: Neural Mediationsupporting

confidence: 56%

The initial torsional Ocular Following Response (tOFR) in humans: A response to the total motion energy in the stimulus?

2009

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“…Thus, the supposed preference for the eye region can in principle result from a general bias to pay more attention to the upper part of the visual field. This bias might result from a different distribution of functional units in the lower and upper visual field [20], [21] and such bias was already demonstrated for eye movements in a visual search task [22]. To examine to what degree such bias is reflected in the results of this experiment, we carried out a second experiment where we manipulated the position where the faces were presented.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…This gazing pattern occurred even when saccades did not allow for extracting further information from the stimuli (i.e., for short presentation durations). Experiment 2 indicates that these results do not reflect a general bias for attending the upper visual field [22] but suggest that initial saccades target the facial feature that is nearest to fixation. These findings substantiate the conclusion that the eyes of a conspecific – even independent of the depicted emotional expression – provide important information that needs to be assessed quickly [23], [24].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Diagnostic Features of Emotional Expressions Are Processed Preferentially

2012

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Diagnostic features of emotional expressions are differentially distributed across the face. The current study examined whether these diagnostic features are preferentially attended to even when they are irrelevant for the task at hand or when faces appear at different locations in the visual field. To this aim, fearful, happy and neutral faces were presented to healthy individuals in two experiments while measuring eye movements. In Experiment 1, participants had to accomplish an emotion classification, a gender discrimination or a passive viewing task. To differentiate fast, potentially reflexive, eye movements from a more elaborate scanning of faces, stimuli were either presented for 150 or 2000 ms. In Experiment 2, similar faces were presented at different spatial positions to rule out the possibility that eye movements only reflect a general bias for certain visual field locations. In both experiments, participants fixated the eye region much longer than any other region in the face. Furthermore, the eye region was attended to more pronouncedly when fearful or neutral faces were shown whereas more attention was directed toward the mouth of happy facial expressions. Since these results were similar across the other experimental manipulations, they indicate that diagnostic features of emotional expressions are preferentially processed irrespective of task demands and spatial locations. Saliency analyses revealed that a computational model of bottom-up visual attention could not explain these results. Furthermore, as these gaze preferences were evident very early after stimulus onset and occurred even when saccades did not allow for extracting further information from these stimuli, they may reflect a preattentive mechanism that automatically detects relevant facial features in the visual field and facilitates the orientation of attention towards them. This mechanism might crucially depend on amygdala functioning and it is potentially impaired in a number of clinical conditions such as autism or social anxiety disorders.

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“…The authors suggested that this central bias could be related to functional specialization of the human visual field. Saccadic eye movements are performed in order to overcome acuity limitations of the visual field and shift its center to new objects of interest [41]. Several explanations have been suggested for the tendency to fixate the center of the scene when freely viewing images: First the central bias may result from motor biases that favor small amplitude saccades over large amplitude saccades.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Driving with Binocular Visual Field Loss? A Study on a Supervised On-Road Parcours with Simultaneous Eye and Head Tracking

et al. 2014

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Post-chiasmal visual pathway lesions and glaucomatous optic neuropathy cause binocular visual field defects (VFDs) that may critically interfere with quality of life and driving licensure. The aims of this study were (i) to assess the on-road driving performance of patients suffering from binocular visual field loss using a dual-brake vehicle, and (ii) to investigate the related compensatory mechanisms. A driving instructor, blinded to the participants' diagnosis, rated the driving performance (passed/failed) of ten patients with homonymous visual field defects (HP), including four patients with right (HR) and six patients with left homonymous visual field defects (HL), ten glaucoma patients (GP), and twenty age and gender-related ophthalmologically healthy control subjects (C) during a 40-minute driving task on a pre-specified public on-road parcours. In order to investigate the subjects' visual exploration ability, eye movements were recorded by means of a mobile eye tracker. Two additional cameras were used to monitor the driving scene and record head and shoulder movements. Thus this study is novel as a quantitative assessment of eye movements and an additional evaluation of head and shoulder was performed. Six out of ten HP and four out of ten GP were rated as fit to drive by the driving instructor, despite their binocular visual field loss. Three out of 20 control subjects failed the on-road assessment. The extent of the visual field defect was of minor importance with regard to the driving performance. The site of the homonymous visual field defect (HVFD) critically interfered with the driving ability: all failed HP subjects suffered from left homonymous visual field loss (HL) due to right hemispheric lesions. Patients who failed the driving assessment had mainly difficulties with lane keeping and gap judgment ability. Patients who passed the test displayed different exploration patterns than those who failed. Patients who passed focused longer on the central area of the visual field than patients who failed the test. In addition, patients who passed the test performed more glances towards the area of their visual field defect. In conclusion, our findings support the hypothesis that the extent of visual field per se cannot predict driving fitness, because some patients with HVFDs and advanced glaucoma can compensate for their deficit by effective visual scanning. Head movements appeared to be superior to eye and shoulder movements in predicting the outcome of the driving test under the present study scenario.

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Linking physiology with behaviour: Functional specialisation of the visual field is reflected in gaze patterns during visual search

Cited by 22 publications

References 53 publications

The initial torsional Ocular Following Response (tOFR) in humans: A response to the total motion energy in the stimulus?

The initial torsional Ocular Following Response (tOFR) in humans: A response to the total motion energy in the stimulus?

Diagnostic Features of Emotional Expressions Are Processed Preferentially

Driving with Binocular Visual Field Loss? A Study on a Supervised On-Road Parcours with Simultaneous Eye and Head Tracking

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