Wolfgang Becker

Heiner Deubel

Thomas Mergner

This volume contains the proceedings of the Ninth European Conference on Eye Movements (ECEM 9), held in Ulm, Germany, on September 23-26, 1997. ECEM 9 con tinued a series of conferences initiated by Rudolf Groner of Bern, Switzerland, in 1981 which, from its very beginning, has brought together scientists from very diverse fields with a common interest in eye movements. About 40 of the papers presented at ECEM 9 have been selected for presentation in full length while others are rendered in condensed form. There is a broad spectrum of motives why people have become involved in, and fas cinated by, eye movement research. Neuroscientists have been allured by the prospect of understanding anatomical findings, single unit recordings, and the sequels of experimental lesions in terms of the clearly defined system requirements and the well documented be havioural repertoire of the oculomotor system. Others have been attracted by the richness of this repertoire and its dependence on an intricate hierarchy of factors spanning from "simple" reflexes to visual pattern recognition and spatio-temporal prediction. Neurolo gists, neuro-ophthalmologists and neuro-otologists have long standing experience with eye movements as sensitive indicators of lesions in the brain stem, the midbrain, and the cere bellum. By studying oculomotor malfunctions they have made, and are continuing to make, important contributions to our understanding of oculomotor functions.

Physiological and Psychological Aspects

Current Oculomotor Research

F. Hlavacka

From recent developments in the rapidly growing area of neuroscience it has become increasingly clear that a simplistic description of brain function as a broad collection of simple input-output relations is quite inadequate. Introspection already tells us that our motor behavior is guided by a complex interplay between many inputs from the outside world and from our internal "milieu," internal models of ourselves and the outside world, memory content, directed attention, volition, and so forth. Also, our motor activity normally involves more than a circumscribed group of muscles, even if we intend to move only one effector organ. For example, a reaching movement or a reorientation of a sensory organ almost invariably requires a pattern of preparatory or assisting activities in other parts of the body, like the ones that maintain the body's equilibrium. The present volume is a summary of the papers presented at the symposium "Sensory Interaction in Posture and Movement Control" that was held at Smolenice Castle near Bratislava, Slovakia, as a Satellite Symposium to the ENA Meeting 1994 in Vienna. The focus of this meeting was not only restricted to the "classical" sensory interactions such as between vestibular and visual signals, or between otolith and semicircular canal inputs. Rather, the symposium tried to consider also the interplay between perception and action, between reflexive and volitional motor acts as well as between sensory driven or self-initi ated motor acts and reafferent inputs.

Thomas Mergner

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