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Occurrence of express saccades under isoluminance and low contrast luminance conditions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2009

Heike Weber ,
Burkhart Fischer ,
Michael Bach  and
Franz Aiple
Heike Weber
Affiliation:
Department of Neurophysiology, University of Freiburg
Burkhart Fischer
Affiliation:
Department of Neurophysiology, University of Freiburg
Michael Bach
Affiliation:
Department of Ophthalmology, University of Freiburg
Franz Aiple
Affiliation:
Department of Ophthalmology, University of Freiburg
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Abstract

Saccadic reaction times (SRTs) of three human subjects were analyzed. The gap paradigm was used (i.e. fixation point offset precedes target onset) to obtain high proportions of express saccades (i.e. saccades of extremely short reaction times) in the SRT distributions. In one set of experiments, the luminance of the (red) saccade target was varied from brighter to darker than the (green) background including an isoluminance condition. Express saccades were obtained in response to pure color contrast stimuli with about the same frequency and reaction time as to stimuli with both color and luminance contrast. In a second experiment, the luminance contrast of a white target on a white background was lowered below 10%. Again the number of express saccades was not reduced. Thus, in contrast to other perceptual phenomena the visual neural mechanisms underlying the generation of express saccades are not affected by isoluminance nor low contrast luminance.

Keywords

Reaction timeEye movementsExpress saccadesColor contrastLuminance contrastIsoluminance
Type
Short Communications
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 7 , Issue 5 , November 1991 , pp. 505 - 510
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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