Zoom Colloquium: Eye movements as readout of predictive and decision processes

Abstract:Visually-guided orienting eye movements (saccades and smooth pursuit) are primarily determined by the physical properties of the target stimuli. However, cognitive factors, such as expectancy and motivation can significantly modulate this kind of eye movements.  For instance, past work in our group has highlighted a robust parametric relation between the expected probability of visual motion direction and anticipatory smooth eye movements. I will present recent extensions of the analysis of predictive eye movements across development and across contexts of increasing complexity. In addition, I will illustrate the dynamic relation between visually-guided eye movements and visual perceptual decisions. In particular, I will describe the recently identified dissociation between the oculomotor and the perceptual bias induced by experience-based motion expectancy. Finally, I will discuss how these findings can be conciliated with the theoretical framework of Bayesian inference for sensorimotor integration and perception.
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