Abstract
AbstractHigh visual acuity is essential for many tasks, from recognizing distant friends to driving a car. While much is known about how the eye’s optics and anatomy contribute to spatial resolution, possible influences from eye movements are rarely considered. Yet humans incessantly move their eyes, and it has long been suggested that oculomotor activity enhances fine pattern vision. Here we examine the role of eye movements in the most common assessment of visual acuity, the Snellen eye chart. By precisely localizing gaze and actively controlling retinal stimulation, we show that fixational behavior improves acuity by more than 0.15 logMAR, at least 2 lines of the Snellen chart. This improvement is achieved by adapting both microsaccades and ocular drifts to precisely position the image on the retina and adjust its motion. These findings show that humans finely tune their fixational eye movements so that they greatly contribute to normal visual acuity.
Funder
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Eye Institute
National Science Foundation
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
General Physics and Astronomy,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Chemistry
Cited by
80 articles.
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