Oculomotor control systems have been extensively studied in adult humans and various animal species, but very little information exists on how these systems develop in young humans. It is important to establish the normal course of development of these behaviors during infancy, since many visual problems include oculomotor components which may be detectable at early ages. The long term objective of this project is to map the development of the conjugate oculomotor systems (optokinetic nystagmus and afternystagmus, smooth pursuit, saccades and fixational control) in normal human infants in the first year of life. Because oculomotor behaviors are sensitive to the state of arousal of the organism, the influence of infant behavioral state on these behaviors will be examined. The research described will provide a quantitative analysis of the oculomotor systems mentioned above by recording eye movements with a non-invasive infra-red corneal reflection eye movement monitor. For maximum precision such devices require individual calibration, which can be difficult with infant subjects;
one aim of the research is to explore means for improving accuracy in recording infant eye movements, in part by improving methods for calibration. Data from infant subjects can then be readily compared with information available on these behaviors in adults and in other species. The specific studies will explore the effects of factors such as monocular vs. binocular viewing conditions, direction and velocity of stimulus movement, size of stimulus, position of stimulus in the visual field, and the context in which the stimulus is embedded on various parameters of the different classes of eye movements.
| Hainline, L; Abramov, I (1997) Eye movement-based measures of development of spatial contrast sensitivity in infants. Optom Vis Sci 74:790-9 |
| Hainline, L; Riddell, P M (1995) Binocular alignment and vergence in early infancy. Vision Res 35:3229-36 |
| Zemon, V; Eisner, W; Gordon, J et al. (1995) Contrast-dependent responses in the human visual system: childhood through adulthood. Int J Neurosci 80:181-201 |
| Hainline, L; Riddell, P; Grose-Fifer, J et al. (1992) Development of accommodation and convergence in infancy. Behav Brain Res 49:33-50 |
| Abramov, I; Hainline, L; Duckman, R H (1990) Screening infant vision with paraxial photorefraction. Optom Vis Sci 67:538-45 |
| Harris, C M (1989) The ethology of saccades: a non-cognitive model. Biol Cybern 60:401-10 |
| Harris, C M; Hainline, L; Abramov, I et al. (1988) The distribution of fixation durations in infants and naive adults. Vision Res 28:419-32 |
| Hainline, L; Abramov, I (1985) Saccades and small-field optokinetic nystagmus in infants. J Am Optom Assoc 56:620-6 |
