The Significance of Peripheral Vision in the Perception of Movement

Abstract

Certain significant differences have been shown to occur in the character of the optokinetic response of a subject gazing actively and passively at a moving striped drum which suggest that different nervous mechanisms subserve each. Image motion across the retina appears to be the stimulus inducing the passive variety and is moreover largely responsible for the illusory sensations of self rotation. This same mechanism may be invoked by way of explanation of the phenomenon of reversed optokinetic nystagmus. The occurrence of this phenomenon in patients with non congenital as well as congenital nystagmus lends support to this explanation. Eye movements induced in the normal eye of subjects with unilateral ophthalmoplegia following stimulation of the paretic eye provide additional support for the contention that peripheral vision contributes to the control of normal ocular movements.