Differing proportions of 'express saccade makers' in different human populations



Amatya, Nabin, Gong, Qiyong and Knox, Paul C ORCID: 0000-0002-2578-7335
(2011) Differing proportions of 'express saccade makers' in different human populations. EXPERIMENTAL BRAIN RESEARCH, 210 (1). pp. 117-129.

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Abstract

Debate continues about cultural influences on processes such as perception and memory. One underlying assumption is that high level, top-down influences that differ between populations (culture) act on identical brain structures and functions to produce different behaviours. More specifically, it has been reported that in various types of complex visual task, eye movement patterns differ systematically between Chinese and non-Chinese subjects. We investigated a relatively simple behaviour (reflexive eye saccades), comparing the saccade latency distributions of Chinese and Caucasian subjects. In a task in which the fixation target remained illuminated when the saccade target appeared (overlap task), 10 out of 34 (29%) Chinese subjects exhibited a high proportion (>30%) of low latency 'express' saccades. This pattern of response had been reported to be very uncommon in healthy, naïve subjects. We therefore subsequently confirmed that only 1 out of 38 Caucasian subjects exhibited it. The results suggest important population differences with regard to the expression of distinct oculomotor behaviours.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Available online: 4 March 2011. Published April 2011.
Uncontrolled Keywords: Saccades, Express saccades, Latency, Fixation
Subjects: ?? RE ??
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Divisions: Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 26 Oct 2011 16:28
Last Modified: 16 Dec 2022 04:34
DOI: 10.1007/s00221-011-2609-z
Publisher's Statement : © Springer-Verlag 2009. This article was first published in Amatya, Nabin, Gong, Qyong, Knox, Paul C.(2011) Differing proportions of 'express saccade makers' in different human populations, Experimental Brain Research, 210(1), pp. 117-129 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00221-011-2609-z. The final publication is available at www.springerlink.com .
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URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/1486