Oculomotor Systems and Perception

Understanding visual experience has long challenged the best of human minds, from the Ancient Greeks’ interest in optics to the study of visual perception by contemporary psychologists and neuroscientists. Today’s scientific study of perception seeks to understand the nature of our experience in terms of the underlying mechanisms by which it occurs. This text is 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. These systems 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 offered as well. Oculomotor Systems and Perception complements standard texts on visual perception, yet may be read independently by those with a modest background in vision science.