This seminar presents a perspective on the development of oculomotor control in children inspired by insights from evolution. Although saccades are usually considered to be gaze shifting movements, they are originally thought to have evolved as the fast phase of gaze holding reflexes which stabilise the image on the retina during head movement (vestibular / optokinetic eye movements). Our research suggests that aspects of the development of children’s oculomotor control mirror this evolutionary transition from gaze holding to gaze shifting. I will summarise research and observations in 758 primary school aged children performing a variety of eye movements tasks at the Lincoln Summer Scientist Week public participation event. Children under 7 years are slow to shift gaze away from central stimuli, even sometimes becoming “stuck” and fail to make saccades to peripheral onsets (“sticky fixation”). This feature of children's eye movements can be mis-interpreted as an inability to understand simple task instructions and is also a potential confounding factor in tests used to assess cognitive function (e.g. stop signal tasks). The findings also have implications for understanding typically developing children’s visual and cognitive abilities in educational contexts (e.g. reading and search).
Bio
Tim is a Professor of Psychology at University of Lincoln. He was previously Associate Professor at University of Exeter and a post-doctoral researcher at Imperial College Medical School where his research focussed on the cognitive control of eye movements in patients with stroke and Parkinsons disease. Most recently his research and impact work has addressed children’s vision and oculomotor control, including the Eyelander computer game for children with visual field loss (www.eyelander.co.uk). Currently he is principal investigator on a 3-year Leverhulme Trust project: "Sticky eyes: The development of fixation disengagement control in children"