Saccadic Eye Movements Produced by the “Gap Paradigm ” in the Monkey

The initiation of both pursuit and saccades was affected by the presence of a temporal gap between the disappearance of a fixated visual target and the appearance of a second, eccentric, target. For pursuit, the gap paradigm produced a modest (20 msec) decrease in latency. For saccades, the gap paradigm produced a similar modest decrease in the latency of some saccades, but also revealed a population of very short latency “express ” saccades. The modest changes in the latency of pursuit and regular saccades displayed a similar dependence on gap duration, with the largest decreases produced by gaps of 200-300 msec. The gap paradigm did not produce “express ” pursuit, even though express saccades could be elicited on interleaved trials. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. Pursuit Saccade Latency Fixation Attentio