Oculomotor Systems and Perception

This 2001 text emphasizes the role of oculomotor systems in perception and the implications of researching them.

Sheldon M. Ebenholtz (Author)

9780521002363, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 22 August 2005

236 pages, 106 b/w illus. 2 tables
23.5 x 16 x 1.6 cm, 0.437 kg

'… a valuable and challenging companion to a conventional textbook in an undergraduate course on perception. At the graduate level, it would serve well as the central reading along with selected papers from the primary literature. Perhaps most important, it stands as an important work of scholarship, calling attention of all serious students of vision to the fundamental importance of oculomotor systems in visual experience.' Optometry and Vision Science

This 2001 text was the first to emphasize the role of oculomotor systems in perception. Oculomotor systems that regulate eye movements play an important role in accounting for certain qualities of visual experience. They are implicated in a wide array of perceptual topics, from apparent size, depth, and distance, to apparent slant and vertical orientation. The text begins with a brief introduction to the basic characteristics of such oculomotor systems as those controlling vergence, pursuit, the vestibulo-ocular response, and saccadic eye movements. Also introduced are fundamental concepts in physiological optics. Next explored are mechanisms of perception, with a particular focus on eye movements, and the remarkably diverse implications of oculomotor research, which extend to motion sickness and life in space orbit. Insights into dysfunctional vision are also offered. This book complements standard texts on visual perception, yet may be read independently by those with a modest background in vision science.

1. Introduction
2. Some basic concepts of physiological optics
3. Oculomotor systems
4. Oculomotor factors in perception
5. Theoretical issues and underlying mechanisms
6. Concluding remarks
Appendix
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Neurosciences [PSAN], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR]