Inertial movements of the iris as the origin of post-saccadic oscillations

Abstract

The use of eye-tracking techniques is becoming rapidly extended because of its relevance for acquiring information about cognition and behavior. Recent studies indicate that a correct characterization of the motion of the pupil inside the eyeball is needed, because this motion influences the eye-tracking results. In this work we face this problem and we develop a model that reproduces several findings of recent experiments on saccadic movements. In particular, the dependence of the amplitude and period of the post saccadic oscillations on the saccade size, as well as that of the peak velocity. Our results suggest that post saccadic oscillations could obey mainly to inertial phenomena experimented by the inner part of the iris when the eyeball rotates.