Brief intermittent light stimulation disrupts saccadic oculomotor control.
OBJECTIVE
This study sought to determine the effect of very brief, single and multiple pulses of light on spatial and temporal aspects of saccadic eye movements.


METHODS
Twelve visually normal, young adult subjects participated in the experiments. Horizontal eye position was monitored as subjects attempted to track target step displacements in the presence of either single or multiple brief flashes of light in the visual field.


RESULTS
Three primary findings were observed: (1) increased saccadic latency, (2) increased time for target acquisition and (3) increased initial saccadic error.


CONCLUSIONS
The present findings suggest the influence of attentional processes and/or visual masking effects on saccadic eye movement control.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University Heights, Newark, NJ 07102, USA. tara.l.alvarez@njit.edu
Tara L
TL
Alvarez
Kevin D
KD
Beck
Kenneth J
KJ
Ciuffreda
Florence B
FB
Chua
Anuj
A
Daftari
Robert M
RM
DeMarco
Michael T
MT
Bergen
Richard J
RJ
Servatius
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention; D002138:Calibration; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*