Properties of saccades during optokinetic responses to radial optic flow in monkeys

Optokinetic eye movements stabilize vision in response to large–field visual motion. We have studied oculomotor behavior of rhesus monkeys that viewed large optic flow stimuli. These stimuli present radial motion that is normally experienced during forward self–movement. In previous work (Lappe et al., 1998) we have described that such radial optic flow stimuli also elicit optokinetic responses in the form of slow eye movements which stabilize the moving visual image on the fovea and parafovea. Here we describe the properties of saccades during unrestrained viewing of radial optic flow. We show that the saccades do not share the reflectory nature of the slow phases but rather support an active exploration of the visual scene.