BBC News is reporting that scientists under Dr. Michele Rucci at Boston University developed a technique to stabilize eye movements. What they uncovered is that tiny, involuntary flickering movements of the eyes seem to allow our vision to get sharper. Their research is published in the latest issue of Nature.
Professor Michele Rucci and colleagues used a new technique for counteracting the visual effects of the eye movements to test their effects on vision.
They were able to stop the effects of the movements for short periods of time, so that vision did not start to fade.
They found that, without the motion, people in the study were less able to perceive fine details in images.
The group’s retinal stabilization experiments were carried on an instrument called EyeRIS, (Eye movement Real-time Integrated System), an “in-house developed system for gaze-contingent display control. This hardware and software system allows flexible real-time modification of the stimulus according to subject’s eye movements with refresh rates up to 200Hz.” We found details about the EyeRIS on this project page.
Active Perception Laboratory, where the instrument was developed, also has a range of biorobotic machines that are part of an “ongoing effort of coupling computational models of the brain with behaving automata.”
See more machines at biorobotics page.
More about psyhophysical experiments at the Active Perception Laboratory…
BBC News article: Eye flickers key for fine detail …
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