Master of Science in Medicine / Saccadic and vestibular-evoked eye movements are similar in that their three-dimensional kinematic properties show eye position-dependence. When the line of sight is directed towards an eccentric target, the eye velocity axis tilts in a manner that depends on the instantaneous position of the eye in the head, with the magnitude of tilt also depending on whether the eye movement is saccadic or vestibular-evoked. The mechanism responsible for producing eye velocity axis tilting phenomena is not well understood. Some authorities have suggested that muscle pulleys in the orbit are critical for implementing eye velocity axis tilting, while others have suggested that the cerebellum plays an important role. In the current study, three-dimensional eye and head rotation data were acquired, using the magnetic search coil technique, to confirm the presence of eye position-dependent eye velocity axis tilting during saccadic eye movements. Both normal humans and humans with cerebellar atrophy were studied. While the humans with cerebellar atrophy were noted to have abnormalities in the two-dimensional metrics and consistency of their saccadic eye movements, the eye position-dependent eye velocity axis tilts were similar to those observed in the normal subjects. A mathematical model of the human saccadic and vestibular systems was utilized to investigate the means by which these eye position-dependent properties may arise for both types of eye movement. The predictions of the saccadic model were compared with the saccadic data obtained in the current study, while the predictions of the vestibular model were compared with vestibular-evoked eye movement data obtained in a previous study. The results from the model simulations suggest that the muscle pulleys are responsible for bringing about eye position-dependent eye velocity axis tilting for both saccadic and vestibular-evoked eye movements, and that these phenomena are not centrally programmed.

Master of Science in Medicine / Saccadic and vestibular-evoked eye movements are similar in that their three-dimensional kinematic properties show eye position-dependence. When the line of sight is directed towards an eccentric target, the eye velocity axis tilts in a manner that depends on the instantaneous position of the eye in the head, with the magnitude of tilt also depending on whether the eye movement is saccadic or vestibular-evoked. The mechanism responsible for producing eye velocity axis tilting phenomena is not well understood. Some authorities have suggested that muscle pulleys in the orbit are critical for implementing eye velocity axis tilting, while others have suggested that the cerebellum plays an important role. In the current study, three-dimensional eye and head rotation data were acquired, using the magnetic search coil technique, to confirm the presence of eye position-dependent eye velocity axis tilting during saccadic eye movements. Both normal humans and humans with cerebellar atrophy were studied. While the humans with cerebellar atrophy were noted to have abnormalities in the two-dimensional metrics and consistency of their saccadic eye movements, the eye position-dependent eye velocity axis tilts were similar to those observed in the normal subjects. A mathematical model of the human saccadic and vestibular systems was utilized to investigate the means by which these eye position-dependent properties may arise for both types of eye movement. The predictions of the saccadic model were compared with the saccadic data obtained in the current study, while the predictions of the vestibular model were compared with vestibular-evoked eye movement data obtained in a previous study. The results from the model simulations suggest that the muscle pulleys are responsible for bringing about eye position-dependent eye velocity axis tilting for both saccadic and vestibular-evoked eye movements, and that these phenomena are not centrally programmed.

No / Language is more than a source of information for accessing higher-order conceptual knowledge. Indeed, language may determine how people perceive and interpret visual stimuli. Visual processing in linguistic contexts, for instance, mirrors language processing and happens incrementally, rather than through variously-oriented fixations over a particular scene. The consequences of this atypical visual processing are yet to be determined. Here, we investigated the integration of visual and linguistic input during a reasoning task. Participants listened to sentences containing conjunctions or disjunctions (Nancy examined an ant and/or a cloud) and looked at visual scenes containing two pictures that either matched or mismatched the nouns. Degree of match between nouns and pictures (referential anchoring) and between their expected and actual spatial positions (spatial anchoring) affected fixations as well as judgments. We conclude that language induces incremental processing of visual scenes, which in turn becomes susceptible to reasoning errors during the language-meaning verification process.