EYE TRACKING OF SELF-MOVED TARGETS - ROLE OF EFFERENCE

Simultaneous monitoring of eye and hand positions in 5 experiments shows that an S can visually track a target more accurately if moved by him rather than if moved independently of his control, indicating that the oculomotor system has access to the efference that produces the target movements. Ss were undergraduates and university employees. In tracking, most of the useful information in the efferent signal appears to be dynamic and thus concerned with the self-moved target's absolute velocity and acceleration changes. S was able to track smoothly an intermittently appearing target (which of itself gave no information about its motion) when the target movement was related to S's passively moved arm, indicating a proprioceptive input from the arm of use to the pursuit eye movement system. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1969 American Psychological Association.