Scaling of horizontal and vertical fixational eye movements

Jin-Rong Liang, Shay Moshel, Ari Z. Zivotofsky, Avi Caspi, Ralf Engbert, Reinhold Kliegl, and Shlomo Havlin
Phys. Rev. E 71, 031909 – Published 21 March 2005

Abstract

Eye movements during fixation of a stationary target prevent the adaptation of the visual system to continuous illumination and inhibit fading of the image. These random, involuntary, small movements are restricted at long time scales so as to keep the target at the center of the field of view. Here we use detrended fluctuation analysis in order to study the properties of fixational eye movements at different time scales. Results show different scaling behavior between horizontal and vertical movements. When the small ballistic movements, i.e., microsaccades, are removed, the scaling exponents in both planes become similar. Our findings suggest that microsaccades enhance the persistence at short time scales mostly in the horizontal component and much less in the vertical component. This difference may be due to the need for continuously moving the eyes in the horizontal plane, in order to match the stereoscopic image for different viewing distances.

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  • Received 16 July 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.71.031909

©2005 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Jin-Rong Liang1,2,*, Shay Moshel1, Ari Z. Zivotofsky3, Avi Caspi3, Ralf Engbert4, Reinhold Kliegl4, and Shlomo Havlin1,†

  • 1Minerva Center and Department of Physics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
  • 2Department of Mathematics, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, People's Republic of China
  • 3Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
  • 4Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, P.O. Box 601553, 14415 Potsdam, Germany

  • *Email address: jrliang@math.ecnu.edu.cn
  • Email address: havlin@ophir.ph.biu.ac.il

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Issue

Vol. 71, Iss. 3 — March 2005

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