What are the processes that guide eye-movements during search? What is the information available to the 1st saccade during search and how does it compare to that available to perception?  Is the human saccadic system have the same coding efficiency for simple tasks such as luminance detection as it does for more complex tasks such as search for letters?

How much does performance in the final perceptual decision benefit from the overt search with eye movements? Does the 2nd saccade during search have access to more information than the first?  These are some of the questions we are currently investigating with our collaborators: Dr. Leland Stone and Brent Beutter at NASA Ames Research Center.  Collaborators:
 

Want to know about this research?
Detailed description about some of our findings
 

Selected Publications:

Beutter, B.R., Eckstein, M.P., Stone, L.S.,Saccadic and perceptual performance in visual search tasks. I. Contrast detection and discrimination. J Opt Soc Am A Opt Image Sci Vis, 20, 1341-55 (2003)

Murray, R.., Beutter, B.R., Eckstein, M.P., Stone, L.S., Saccadic and perceptual performance in visual search tasks. II. Letter discrimination.
J Opt Soc Am A Opt Image Sci Vis., 20,:1356-70 (2003)

Eckstein, M.P., Beutter, B.R., Stone, L.S., Quantifying the performance limits of human saccadic targeting in visual search, Perception , 30, 1389-1401, (2001)

Eckstein, M.P., Beutter, B.R., Stone, L., The effect of set-size on the relation between saccadic and perceptual decisions during search, Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science (Suppl.), 39, 1031, (1998) 

M.P. Eckstein, L.S., Stone, B. R. Beutter, The accuracy of saccadic and perceptual decisions in visual search ,  Perception (Suppl.), 26, 70, (1997) 

Eckstein, M.P., Stone, L.S., Beutter, B.R.  The visual efficiency of eye movements during search. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science (1997).