Latency of sequential eye movements: implications for reading.
The best available estimates indicate that the average minimum latency of saccadic eye movements (175-200 msec) approaches the mean duration of fixations in reading (200-250 msec). This fact presents a problem for models of reading which assume that an eye movement is initiated only after substantial information is processed on a fixation. Three experiments are reported that support earlier estimates of saccadic latency; the experiments were conducted under conditions in which the length of measured latencies could not reflect a motoric refractory period, spatial uncertainty, or temporal uncertainty.
D005133:Eye Movements; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009801:Oculomotor Muscles / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012438:Saccades