Optometry Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Optometry, including details on myopia, optometric practice, therapy.

The attenuation of perceived motion smear during combined eye and head movements.

Tong J, Patel SS, Bedell HE

College of Optometry, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-2020, USA.

The extent of perceived motion smear was compared for targets that underwent similar velocities of retinal image motion during the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) in the dark, the visually enhanced VOR (VVOR), VOR suppression, and fixation. Compared to the extent of perceived motion smear during fixation, observers reported significantly less smear when the target moved either in the same direction or against the direction of the head movement during the VVOR and VOR. We also confirmed a previous finding that perceived smear is attenuated asymmetrically during VOR suppression, with attenuation occurring primarily for targets that move against the direction of the observer's head motion. The results support the hypothesis that the visual system employs extra-retinal signals that accompany eye and head movements to reduce the perception of motion smear for targets that move physically in the opposite direction of eye and/or head movements.

Published 1 November 2006 in Vision Res, 46(26): 4387-97.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2005-2008 Optometry Research Today. All Rights Reserved.