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Biomedical subjects

E Lemerise

Publications and source records attributed to E Lemerise.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

The distribution of fixation durations in infants and naive adults.

The distributions of durations of fixations from infants and free-viewing adults are shown to be basically exponential for different stimulus conditions. It is found that fixation duration can be divided into two periods. One, the alpha-period, is a refractory period during which a saccade does not occur and fluctuates across fixations. The other, the beta-period, is a random variable intrinsic to each fixation and constitutes a waiting-time for a saccade that occurs with constant probability per unit time. It is shown that mean duration decreases when stimulus size increases. These results suggest that fixations are terminated by saccades triggered by non-foveal stimulation.

Adult↗

Changes in visual functions of children exposed as infants to prolonged illumination.

The visual system can be modified by early experience. Many infants requiring extensive medical treatment spend time in neonatal intensive care units in which they experience prolonged and relatively intense illumination. Visual functions were measured in a group of 7-year-old children who, as infants, were in intensive care for treatment of neonatal jaundice. Using procedures disguised as games, these children were tested for spatial and temporal resolution, receptor functions, and binocular vision. Especially in children whose eyes had not been shielded, deficits were found in color vision, spatial contrast sensitivity, and stereopsis, but not in rod vision.

Child↗

Characteristics of saccades in human infants.

Infants (14-151 days) and adults were shown two-dimensional geometric forms or stimuli from a set of highly textured patterns. Their eye movements were recorded by an infrared corneal reflection eye movement recorder as they freely scanned the stimuli. For both infants and adults, linear relationships were found between the peak velocities of fast eye movements and their amplitudes (main sequences). Infants viewing texture stimuli had main sequences with slopes comparable to those of adults. Infants viewing simple geometric forms made slower saccades. They also showed more eye movement oscillations which analyses showed were probably back-to-back saccades. Both the slower saccades and saccadic oscillations were attributed to factors related to the attentional value of the stimuli.

Adolescent↗

Orientational asymmetries in small-field optokinetic nystagmus in human infants.

Optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) is a pattern of reflexive eye movements which occurs when portions of the visual field are in continuous motion. Gratings moving at 7 deg/s either horizontally (left or right) or vertically (up or down) were presented on a viewing screen subtending 30 degrees by 22 degrees. Horizontal (HOKN) and vertical (VOKN) OKN were recorded under binocular viewing conditions from infants and adults. Eye movements were recorded by means of an infrared corneal reflection eye movement recorder. OKN to horizontal and vertical stimuli was different in pattern for infants. Infants' HOKN was of significantly higher frequency and lower amplitude than their VOKN. Infants below 4 months of age also showed an asymmetry within VOKN between upward and downward stimulus motion, with markedly lower gains and more variable slow phase following movements for downward moving stimuli. No differences were found in HOKN to the right and left. There was also no evidence of a build-up of slow phase velocity over time. Infants' fast phases showed peak velocity/amplitude relationships like those of adults, and like those of infant saccades recorded in a previous study of infants' fast eye movements. Across all directions of stimulus movement, infants had lower slow phase gains and OKN frequencies, and larger slow phase amplitudes than adults. The characteristics of infants' OKN are discussed in relation to those observed in other species and in adult clinical patients with eye movement disorders.

Adolescent↗

Rocket-ship psychophysics. Assessing visual functioning in young children.

A set of psychophysical procedures is described for rapidly measuring visual functions such as spatial contrast sensitivity, flicker fusion, and rod and cone two-color increment thresholds in young children. The psychophysical procedures, disguised as electronic space games, use a forced-choice paradigm combined with the method of descending limits. Because children enjoy the tasks and are highly motivated, the tests yield good sensory thresholds in a short period of time. However, when thresholds from 6-8-year-old children are compared with those of adults, the children have slightly higher thresholds for all of the functions tested. The differences are ascribed to the tendency of children to adopt a guessing strategy when stimuli are close to threshold.

Adolescent↗