A framework for understanding the control of sequential eye movements

Visual perception is fundamentally limited by physiology. To see in high definition we need to move our gaze and the most common way we do this by moving our eyes in rapid jumps (saccades). Here we will examine our ability to produce these movements in everyday tasks.

Department: Psychology

Supervised by: Eugene McSorley

The Placement Project

We only have blurred visual information available to us from our peripheral visual field while the central foveal portion, gives us our highest visual acuity. As a result, we rapidly shift our focus of gaze from one location to another to allow us to carry out everyday activities, such as cooking, reading, driving and common online activities. These eye movements are known as saccades, and we execute many thousands of these every day resulting in a scan path of saccadic movements and fixations across the visual world that contain many movements to objects and locations. This unfolding scan path pattern is generally considered to be a direct result of ongoing visuomotor transformations that combine low-level topographic maps of the visual world coupled with higher-level cognitive control goal directed mechanisms. This combination produces a priority map which dictates the saccadic scan path. However, this process is still little understood. The work in this UROP will involve recording the saccadic eye movements people make when they complete commonplace everyday tasks (e.g., make a sandwich) while we manipulate key aspects of their visual environment. For example, the similarity and location of task relevant and irrelevant items in terms of their shape, function, and relative position; the influence of appropriate and inappropriate environmental contexts; and the complexity of the task. The impact these manipulations have on saccade scan path control will allow us to draw inferences about the underlying ongoing visuomotor transformations that translate visual information into saccade responses.

Tasks

Lab management, eye tracking and data analysis support

Skills, knowledge and experience required

Psychology and research methods

Skills which will be developed during the placement

Communication, time management and organisation skills will also be developed

Place of Work

School of Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences

Hours of Work

9-5

Approximate Start and End Dates (not fixed)

Monday 10 June 2024 - Wednesday 26 July 2023

How to Apply

The deadline to apply for this project is 5pm on Friday 5th April 2024. To make an application, please go to the following link and complete the application form: https://forms.office.com/e/pMgea0dAHv. To find this project in the application form, please filter ‘school of project applying to’ and select School of Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences