title: The distribution of fixation durations in infants and naive adults.
abstract: The distributions of durations of fixations from infants and free-viewing adults are shown to be basically exponential for different stimulus conditions. It is found that fixation duration can be divided into two periods. One, the alpha-period, is a refractory period during which a saccade does not occur and fluctuates across fixations. The other, the beta-period, is a random variable intrinsic to each fixation and constitutes a waiting-time for a saccade that occurs with constant probability per unit time. It is shown that mean duration decreases when stimulus size increases. These results suggest that fixations are terminated by saccades triggered by non-foveal stimulation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Brooklyn College, NY 11210.
authors.forename: C M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hainline
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Abramov
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lemerise
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Camenzuli
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D005133:Eye Movements; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012016:Reference Values; D012438:Saccades; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013997:Time Factors