Neural correlates of active vision: An fMRI comparison of natural reading and scene viewing

• Published in: Neuropsychologia Vol. 75; pp. 109 - 118
• Main Authors: Choi, Wonil, Henderson, John M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.08.2015
• Subjects: Active vision; Adolescent; Adult; Brain - physiology; Brain Mapping; Eye Movement Measurements; Eye Movements; Female; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Reading; Scene perception; Visual cognition; Visual Perception - physiology; Young Adult; Scene perception; Visual cognition; Active vision; Reading; Eye movements
• ISSN: 0028-3932; 1873-3514
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.05.027

Theories of eye movement control during active vision tasks such as reading and scene viewing have primarily been developed and tested using data from eye tracking and computational modeling, and little is currently known about the neurocognition of active vision. The current fMRI study was conducted to examine the nature of the cortical networks that are associated with active vision. Subjects were asked to read passages for meaning and view photographs of scenes for a later memory test. The eye movement control network comprising frontal eye field (FEF), supplementary eye fields (SEF), and intraparietal sulcus (IPS), commonly activated during single-saccade eye movement tasks, were also involved in reading and scene viewing, suggesting that a common control network is engaged when eye movements are executed. However, the activated locus of the FEF varied across the two tasks, with medial FEF more activated in scene viewing relative to passage reading and lateral FEF more activated in reading than scene viewing. The results suggest that eye movements during active vision are associated with both domain-general and domain-specific components of the eye movement control network. •We examined the nature of the cortical networks associated with active vision.•Subjects read passages and viewed scenes with eyetracking and fMRI.•A common eye movement control network was observed in reading and scene viewing.•The specific locus of FEF activation varied across reading and scene viewing.•Eye movement control draws on domain-general and domain-specific.