Hardbound. This fifth volume of Reviews of Oculomotor Research is mainly concerned with the visual stabilization mechanisms but, unlike the previous volumes in the series, the coverage goes beyond the mammalian literature. The emphasis is on the visual processing problems that must be solved if the motor responses are to be appropriate. Chapters are included dealing specifically with the psychophysics and physiology of visual motion, areas of intense research activity in recent years.The first section deals with the fundamental problem of how motion is first decoded by the visual system. The second section deals with more global aspects of the visual motion experienced by the moving observer. The third and last section deals with specific stabilizing behaviors and their underlying physiology.An excellent book, at the cutting edge of research developments in visual stabilization mechanisms.

In six parts, this book considers the extent to which computational, neural, and ecological constraints have shaped the mechanisms underlying motion vision: - Early Motion Vision - Motion Signals for Local and Global Analysis - Optical Flow Patterns - Motion Vision in Action - Neural Coding of Motion - Motion in Natural Environments Each topic is introduced by a keynote chapter which is accompanied by several companion articles. Written by an international group of experts in neurobiology, psychophysics, animal behaviour, machine vision, and robotics, the book is designed to explore as comprehensively as possible the present state of knowledge concerning the principal factors that have guided the evolution of motion vision.

Recent vision research has led to the emergence of new techniques that offer exciting potential for a more complete assessment of vision in clinical, industrial, and military settings. Emergent Techniques for Assessment of Visual Performance examines four areas of vision testing that offer potential for improved assessment of visual capability including: contrast sensitivity function, dark-focus of accommodation, dynamic visual acuity and dynamic depth tracking, and ambient and focal vision. In contrast to studies of accepted practices, this report focuses on emerging techniques that could help determine whether people have the vision necessary to do their jobs. In addition to examining some of these emerging techniques, the report identifies their usefulness in predicting performance on other visual and visual-motor tasks, and makes recommendations for future research. Emergent Techniques for Assessment of Visual Performance provides summary recommendations for research that will have significant value and policy implications for the next 5 to 10 years. The content and conclusions of this report can serve as a useful resource for those responsible for screening industrial and military visual function.

How do our eyes process and communicate the data needed for us to negotiate the world around us? This book exploits recent technological advances in eye tracking systems to present a state-of-the-art account of human vision. It explores practical implications, for example in driving, playing sports, and ergonomics.

Smooth pursuit eye movements work in combination with other eye movement systems to ensure stable vision in a non-stationary world. Pursuit eye movements are tracking eye movements that allow primates to keep moving objects stable on the retina for improved visual processing. Although the basic task of the pursuit system is to perform a sensorimotor transformation that generates an eye velocity that matches target velocity, the relationship between target motion and subsequent eye movement is not fixed. This thesis investigates the neural signals that modulate the sensorimotor transformation for pursuit, based both on current context and on previous experience. The amplitude of the pursuit response to a brief perturbation of target velocity is larger if the perturbation is presented during ongoing pursuit vs. during fixation. To understand the neural signals used by the pursuit system to control the gain of the response to target perturbations under different initial conditions and thereby constrain the possible sites and mechanisms of context-dependent pursuit modulation, I used passive whole body rotation to distinguish between eye velocity (eye in head) and gaze velocity (eye in world) signals. Adaptive modification of the vestibulo-ocular reflex allowed a further distinction between gaze velocity per se and the visually-driven component of gaze velocity. The results demonstrate that signals intermediate to gaze velocity and visually-driven gaze velocity control context-dependent modulation of pursuit. In a separate set of experiments, I investigated the signals that modulate the sensorimotor transformation for pursuit based on experience. Specifically, I used microstimulation in cortical area MT to test the hypothesis that visual motion signals represented there could provide instructive signals for pursuit learning. The results demonstrate that activity in MT, consistently associated with pursuit in a given direction, is sufficient to drive learning for pursuit. Additional experiments stabilizing the target on the retina and using motion of a visual background to mimic MT stimulation demonstrate that visual signals in general, including target motion relative to the eye, and activity in MT, are provide powerful instructive signals for pursuit learning under physiological conditions.

A collection of contemporary work in various areas of eye-movement research with an emphasis on physiological aspects is presented in this book. The contributions are divided into six sections: I. saccadic eye movements; II. smooth pursuit and motion perception; III. eye movements in pathology and clinical settings; IV. neurophysiology of eye movements; V. optokinetic nystagmus; and VI. methods. This volume provides updated information on the most recent research on eye movements carried out mainly in Europe.

Visual cognition is an important area of biocybernetics. It ranges from the filtering processes of early vision to the structural and functional organization of the visual centres, as well as, in higher animals, to the neuronal plasticity, the decision-making rules, the effect of noise, the role of attention, the ambiguity of patterns, and the time dimension. All these factors contribute to the cognitive interpretation of visual sensation that takes place in visual perception. A side field is machine vision, in which the signal processing known from animal vision is applied to the mobile robots responding to light stimulation.