Publication Date
2014
Document Type
Thesis
Committee Members
Scott Watamaniuk, Ph.D. (Advisor); Brian Simpson, Ph.D. (Committee Member); Joseph Houpt, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Abstract
Previous experiments have attempted to measure smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) to acoustic targets with limited success. Some studies found no evidence for SPEM (Gauthier and Hofferer, 1967; Schaefer et al., 1981; Boucher et al., 2004; Berryhill et al., 2006) and other studies found only a sub-set of subjects could produce SPEM, which was poor in quality (Krukowski et al., 2001; Hashiba et al., 1996; Cloninger et al., 2013, 2014). These findings are despite evidence of auditory motion perception and an auditory motion aftereffect in the psychoacoustic literature (Carlile and Best, 2002; Dong et al., 2000). This thesis explored a multi-modal question, whether sounds can facilitate or interfere with pursuit of a visual target by moving congruent with or incongruent with linear visual motion, and did so using high-fidelity eye tracking that allowed for examination of the main pursuit characteristics: latency, open-loop acceleration, open-loop peak acceleration, steady-state gain (i.e., eye velocity/ target velocity), and number of “catch-up” saccades. Results showed evidence of facilitation in some characteristics (open-loop peak acceleration) but no evidence of interference, possibly due to the strength of the visual stimulus.
Page Count
45
Department or Program
Department of Psychology
Year Degree Awarded
2014
Copyright
Copyright 2014, all rights reserved. My ETD will be available under the "Fair Use" terms of copyright law.
