Eye Movements During Fixation on Stationary Objects

Abstract

Before describing the material contained in this chapter, I shall try to explain the general character of eye movements during the perception of stationary objects. Let us consider Fig. 52, which shows a recording of the movements of a subject’s two eyes when examining a flat picture with one eye. During the experiment one of the subject’s eyes was covered by a P₂ cap and the other with a P₁ cap. The black dots in Fig. 52 show the points of fixation during perception of the picture, and the thin lines show movement of each eye from point to point. During the recording, the picture was in a frontal plane. In this case, change in the points of fixation was, roughly speaking, accomplished by movements of a single type—identical and simultaneous very rapid rotation of the eyes, hereinafter conventionally termed “saccades.”