RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Eye Movements in Darkness Modulate Self-Motion Perception
JF eneuro
JO eNeuro
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP ENEURO.0211-16.2016
DO 10.1523/ENEURO.0211-16.2016
VO 4
IS 1
A1 Ivar Adrianus H. Clemens
A1 Luc P. J. Selen
A1 Antonella Pomante
A1 Paul R. MacNeilage
A1 W. Pieter Medendorp
YR 2017
UL http://www.eneuro.org/content/4/1/ENEURO.0211-16.2016.abstract
AB During self-motion, humans typically move the eyes to maintain fixation on the stationary environment around them. These eye movements could in principle be used to estimate self-motion, but their impact on perception is unknown. We had participants judge self-motion during different eye-movement conditions in the absence of full-field optic flow. In a two-alternative forced choice task, participants indicated whether the second of two successive passive lateral whole-body translations was longer or shorter than the first. This task was used in two experiments. In the first (n = 8), eye movements were constrained differently in the two translation intervals by presenting either a world-fixed or body-fixed fixation point or no fixation point at all (allowing free gaze). Results show that perceived translations were shorter with a body-fixed than a world-fixed fixation point. A linear model indicated that eye-movement signals received a weight of ∼25% for the self-motion percept. This model was independently validated in the trials without a fixation point (free gaze). In the second experiment (n = 10), gaze was free during both translation intervals. Results show that the translation with the larger eye-movement excursion was judged more often to be larger than chance, based on an oculomotor choice probability analysis. We conclude that eye-movement signals influence self-motion perception, even in the absence of visual stimulation.