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Individual differences in human eye movements: An oculomotor signature?

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Bargary, G 
Bosten, JM 
Goodbourn, PT 
Lawrance-Owen, AJ 
Hogg, RE 

Abstract

Human eye movements are stereotyped and repeatable, but how specific to a normal individual are the quantitative properties of his or her eye movements? We recorded saccades, anti-saccades and smooth-pursuit eye movements in a sample of over 1000 healthy young adults. A randomly selected subsample (10%) of participants were re-tested on a second occasion after a median interval of 18.8 days, allowing us to estimate reliabilities. Each of several derived measures, including latencies, accuracies, velocities, and left-right asymmetries, proved to be very reliable. We give normative means and distributions for each measure and describe the pattern of correlations amongst them. We identify several measures that exhibit significant sex differences. The profile of our oculomotor measures for an individual constitutes a personal oculomotor signature that distinguishes that individual from most other members of the sample of 1000.

Description

Keywords

eye movement, reliability, individual differences, biometric, saccades, anti-saccades, smooth pursuit, factor analysis, sex differences, handedness, eye dominance, personality, extraversion, autism spectrum quotient, endophenotype

Journal Title

Vision Research

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0042-6989
1878-5646

Volume Title

Publisher

Elsevier
Sponsorship
This research was funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation (GAT2903). PTG was supported by the Cambridge Commonwealth and Overseas Trusts and the Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme, and JMB by a Research Fellowship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.