New Study Shines Light On Microsaccadic Behavior Correlations

Spatial crowding is a typical factor that plays a role in the identification of items in the periphery of the visual field. This phenomenon occurs when one item is crowded amid other things in space. In order to accurately evaluate crowding, crowded stimuli are typically shown to observers in an eccentric posture while they fixate their attention on a particular location in space. However, even as the eyes are fixed, they make very small movements that are referred to as microsaccades. It was recently proposed that these microsaccades are impacted by modifications in the way attention is being distributed.

Spatial crowding is a universal component that affects object recognition in the peripheral visual field. It happens when an object is congested amid other things in space and happens when an object is surrounded by other objects. When doing studies on crowding, it is common practice to offer crowded stimuli in an unusual setting while having observers concentrate their gaze on a single point in space. However, even when we are fixating on an object, our eyes are not completely still but instead perform small-scale eye movements known as microsaccades. It was recently hypothesized that these microsaccades are altered by changes in the way attention is being distributed.

Microsaccadic activity, which may serve as an attentional correlate, was monitored by the researchers conducting the current study. Their goal was to gain a better understanding of the attentional shifts that typically take place after the display of crowded stimuli. During a psychophysical activity, images of the right eye of each observer were taken with a tracking scanning laser ophthalmoscope (TSLO). The stimuli consisted of Sloan numbers ranging from 0 to 9, and they were either exhibited alone or in the company of other Sloan numbers at one of four different nominal spacings.

On tests in which incongruent microsaccades were used, it was observed that the level of crowding fell by 26%. The findings contributed new information to the corpus of research that had previously been conducted on the advantageous impacts of making conscientious shifts in one’s spatial attention to the position of a busy stimulus.