The time course of saccadic decision making: Dynamic field theory

Making a saccadic eye movement involves two decisions, the decision to initiate the saccade and the selection of the visual target of the saccade. Here we provide a theoretical account for the time-courses of these two processes, whose instabilities are the basis of decision making. We show how the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neural networks 2006-10, Vol.19 (8), p.1059-1074
Main Authors: Wilimzig, Claudia, Schneider, Stefan, Schöner, Gregor
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Action Potentials - physiology
Animals
Cross-Over Studies
Decision Making - physiology
Fixation
Humans
Inhibition (Psychology)
Models, Biological
Neural modelling
Neurons - physiology
Nonlinear Dynamics
Photic Stimulation
Psychophysics - methods
Reaction Time - physiology
Saccades
Saccades - physiology
Selection
Time Factors
Visual Cortex - cytology
Visual Cortex - physiology
Visual Fields - physiology
Visual Perception - physiology
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Summary:Making a saccadic eye movement involves two decisions, the decision to initiate the saccade and the selection of the visual target of the saccade. Here we provide a theoretical account for the time-courses of these two processes, whose instabilities are the basis of decision making. We show how the cross-over from spatial averaging for fast saccades to selection for slow saccades arises from the balance between excitatory and inhibitory processes. Initiating a saccade involves overcoming fixation, as can be observed in the countermanding paradigm, which we model accounting both for the temporal evolution of the suppression probability and its dependence on fixation activity. The interaction between the two forms of decision making is demonstrated by predicting how the cross-over from averaging to selection depends on the fixation stimulus in gap-step-overlap paradigms. We discuss how the activation dynamics of our model may be mapped onto neuronal structures including the motor map and the fixation cells in superior colliculus.
ISSN:0893-6080
1879-2782
DOI:10.1016/j.neunet.2006.03.003