Eye Movements and Visual Attention

Eye movements recorded using an infrared based eye-tracking camera – scan path shown in yellow and areas of attention shown in pink (From: Y Tadmor) Vision is a highly active process. Far from passively viewing the world, the brain continuously analyses the visual scene, selects the most salient aspects and directs the eyes accordingly. In Newcastle we are investigating all aspects of this process, from brain chemistry to behaviour. Techniques used include iontophoretic application of neuromodulators to local brain areas, single-unit electrophysiology in awake behaving animals, eye movement recordings, psychophysics, fMRI imaging, clinical studies, and computer modelling. We study the effect of eye movement on visual abilities such as viewing of natural scenes, stereo vision, face recognition, spatial attention, or judgments of attractiveness. Our aim is to understand how these function both in typical human populations and in people either with conditions that affect the movement of the eye (such as strabismus) or with disorders that can affect cognitive processing (such as dementia, autism or body dysmorphia).  We are also exploring how changes of attention or eye movement can contribute to the generation of visual hallucinations. This work links closely to research on the clinical assessment and treatment of eye movement disorders in Ophthalmology.

Staff:

X_eye

Daniel Collerton
Associate Clinical Teacher

Dr Marcus Kaiser
Reader in Neuroinformatics

Dr Jennifer Read
Royal Society Research Fellow

Dr Deborah Riby
Lecturer

Dr Yoav Tadmor
Lecturer

Professor Alexander Thiele
Professor of Visual Neuroscience

Dr Martin Tovee
Reader in Visual Cognition

Selected Publications:

  • Herrero JL, Roberts MJ, Delicato LS, Gieselmann MA, Dayan P, Thiele A (2008) Acetylcholine contributes to attentional modulation in V1 by muscarinic receptors. Nature (in press)
  • Gareze L, Harris JM, Barenghi CF, Tadmor Y (2008) Characterising patterns of eye movements in natural images and visual scanning. Journal of Modern Optics 55: 533-555 (http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a791029128)  
  • Brouwer A-M, Vuong QC, Kanai R (2006) Planning and online control of goal directed movements when the eyes are ‘relocated’. Experimental Brain Research 175: 499-513 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16802147)
  • Read JC, Cumming BG (2007) Sensors for impossible stimuli may solve the stereo correspondence problem. Nature Neuroscience 10: 1322-1328 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17828262)
  • Roberts M, Delicato LS, Herrero J, Gieselmann MA, Thiele A (2007) Attention alters spatial integration in macaque V1 in an eccentricity-dependent manner. Nature Neuroscience 10: 1483-1491 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17906622)
  • Collerton D, Perry E, McKeith I (2005) Why people see things that are not there: A novel Perception and Attention Deficit model for recurrent complex visual hallucinations. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28: 737-757 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16372931)
  • Langton SRH, O'Donnell C, Riby DM, Ballantyne CJ (2006) Gaze cues influence the allocation of attention in natural scene viewing. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 59: 2056-2064 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17095487)
  • Mosimann UP, Muri RM, Burn DJ, Felblinger J, O'Brien JT, McKeith IG (2005) Saccadic eye movement changes in Parkinson's disease dementia and dementia with Lewy bodies. Brain 128: 1267-1276 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15774501)
  • Lappe M, Kuhlmann S, Oerke B, Kaiser M (2006) The fate of object features during perisaccadic mislocalization. Journal of Vision 6: 1282-1293 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17209735)
  • Mosimann UP, Felblinger J, Colloby SJ, Müri RM (2004) Verbal instructions and top-down saccade control. Experimental Brain Research 159: 263-267 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15549281)