Influence of Head and Eye Movements on Visual Input Statistics and Early Neural Representations

我们通常没有意识到我们的眼睛和脑袋总是在运动。然而，即使当我们试图将视线固定在场景中的某个点上时，微小的、无意识的头部和眼睛运动也会持续发生。人们早就知道，由这些运动产生的时间调制对视觉是必不可少的：当头部和眼睛被固定时，世界变得越来越暗，最终将完全消失。然而，凝视运动促进视觉的具体机制仍不清楚。在国家科学基金会的资助下，鲁奇博士和他在波士顿大学的团队将测量人类观察者的微观头部和眼睛运动，并重建进入他们眼睛的输入信号。然后研究人员将使用这些数据来量化观察者的行为对信息感觉流的影响，并检查这种流在不同视觉活动执行过程中的变化。这项研究将探讨注视运动有助于大脑处理视觉信息和建立稳定的视觉感知的机制。阐明注视运动的影响对于增进我们对视觉系统如何运作以及如何建造复制人类视觉能力的机器的知识至关重要。此外，在各种病理情况下都会发生异常的注视眼球运动。彻底了解凝视性眼球运动的功能可能会导致治疗与这种情况相关的视觉障碍。

We are normally not aware that our eyes and head are always in motion. Yet small, involuntary head and eye movements continually occur, even when we attempt to keep our gaze fixed on a point in the scene. It has long been known that the temporal modulations resulting from these movements are essential for seeing: the world becomes progressively fainter and will eventually fade altogether when the head and eyes are immobilized. However, the specific mechanisms by which fixational movements contribute to vision remain unknown. With funding from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Rucci and his team at Boston University will measure microscopic head and eye movements in human observers and reconstruct the input signals entering their eyes. The investigators will then use these data to quantify the impact of the observer's actions on the sensory flow of information and examine how this flow changes during the execution of different visual activities.This research will investigate the mechanisms by which fixational movements contribute to the processing of visual information in the brain and the establishment of a stable visual percept. Elucidating the impact of fixational movements is critical to advancing our knowledge of how the visual system functions and how to build machines which replicate human visual capabilities. Furthermore, abnormal fixational eye movementsoccur in various pathological conditions. A thorough understanding of the functions of fixational eye movements may lead to treatment of the visual impairments associated with such conditions.