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Three-dimensional binocular eye–hand coordination in normal vision and with simulated visual impairment

Three-dimensional binocular eye–hand coordination in normal vision and with simulated visual impairment
Three-dimensional binocular eye–hand coordination in normal vision and with simulated visual impairment

Sensorimotor coupling in healthy humans is demonstrated by the higher accuracy of visually tracking intrinsically—rather than extrinsically—generated hand movements in the fronto-parallel plane. It is unknown whether this coupling also facilitates vergence eye movements for tracking objects in depth, or can overcome symmetric or asymmetric binocular visual impairments. Human observers were therefore asked to track with their gaze a target moving horizontally or in depth. The movement of the target was either directly controlled by the observer’s hand or followed hand movements executed by the observer in a previous trial. Visual impairments were simulated by blurring stimuli independently in each eye. Accuracy was higher for self-generated movements in all conditions, demonstrating that motor signals are employed by the oculomotor system to improve the accuracy of vergence as well as horizontal eye movements. Asymmetric monocular blur affected horizontal tracking less than symmetric binocular blur, but impaired tracking in depth as much as binocular blur. There was a critical blur level up to which pursuit and vergence eye movements maintained tracking accuracy independent of blur level. Hand–eye coordination may therefore help compensate for functional deficits associated with eye disease and may be employed to augment visual impairment rehabilitation.

Amblyopia and strabismus, Asymmetric visual impairment, Eye–hand coordination, Ocular tracking of self-motion, Smooth pursuit, Vergence
0014-4819
691-709
Maiello, Guido
c122b089-1bbc-4d3e-b178-b0a1b31a5295
Kwon, Mi Young
063d98c2-4ae3-4780-a3a6-d75da0221c35
Bex, Peter J.
6e6bd07d-1136-4163-91d1-1144ef209570
Maiello, Guido
c122b089-1bbc-4d3e-b178-b0a1b31a5295
Kwon, Mi Young
063d98c2-4ae3-4780-a3a6-d75da0221c35
Bex, Peter J.
6e6bd07d-1136-4163-91d1-1144ef209570

Maiello, Guido, Kwon, Mi Young and Bex, Peter J. (2018) Three-dimensional binocular eye–hand coordination in normal vision and with simulated visual impairment. Experimental Brain Research, 236 (3), 691-709. (doi:10.1007/s00221-017-5160-8).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Sensorimotor coupling in healthy humans is demonstrated by the higher accuracy of visually tracking intrinsically—rather than extrinsically—generated hand movements in the fronto-parallel plane. It is unknown whether this coupling also facilitates vergence eye movements for tracking objects in depth, or can overcome symmetric or asymmetric binocular visual impairments. Human observers were therefore asked to track with their gaze a target moving horizontally or in depth. The movement of the target was either directly controlled by the observer’s hand or followed hand movements executed by the observer in a previous trial. Visual impairments were simulated by blurring stimuli independently in each eye. Accuracy was higher for self-generated movements in all conditions, demonstrating that motor signals are employed by the oculomotor system to improve the accuracy of vergence as well as horizontal eye movements. Asymmetric monocular blur affected horizontal tracking less than symmetric binocular blur, but impaired tracking in depth as much as binocular blur. There was a critical blur level up to which pursuit and vergence eye movements maintained tracking accuracy independent of blur level. Hand–eye coordination may therefore help compensate for functional deficits associated with eye disease and may be employed to augment visual impairment rehabilitation.

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More information

Published date: 1 March 2018
Additional Information: Funding Information: Acknowledgements The authors thank Dr. Jing Chen for help with setting up the pursuit onset detection algorithm originally developed by Dr. Alexander Schtz, as well as the two anonymous reviewers. This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health Grant R01EY021553. Data andanalysis scripts are available from the Zenodo database (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1100971). Publisher Copyright: © 2018, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
Keywords: Amblyopia and strabismus, Asymmetric visual impairment, Eye–hand coordination, Ocular tracking of self-motion, Smooth pursuit, Vergence

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 485075
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/485075
ISSN: 0014-4819
PURE UUID: 846c8526-0ade-4795-8e48-570b19671c36
ORCID for Guido Maiello: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6625-2583

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Date deposited: 28 Nov 2023 18:15
Last modified: 06 Jun 2024 02:17

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Contributors

Author: Guido Maiello ORCID iD
Author: Mi Young Kwon
Author: Peter J. Bex

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