Interaction of active and passive slow eye movement systems

Summary Independent target and background motions have been used to generate conflicting activity within the pursuit and optokinetic systems. Subjects were required to pursue a small target against a structured background which moved independently. Selective enhancement of the response to the target generated high-gain active pursuit which dominated the eye movements. Passive eye movements induced during relative target and background motion are not normally directly quantifiable due to their low gain. By reducing the gain of the active pursuit optokinetically induced eye movements were enhanced and quantified. Three techniques are described for degrading active pursuit: tachistoscopic, eccentric and pseudorandom methods of target presentation. Our results demonstrate the synchronous input of active and passive eye movement drives to the oculomotor system and illustrate their interaction.