Mapping residual stereopsis in macular degeneration.

Individuals with macular degeneration typically lose vision in the central region of one or both eyes. A binocular scotoma occurs when vision loss occurs in overlapping locations in both eyes, but stereopsis is impacted even in the non-overlapping region wherever the visual field in either eye is affected. We used a novel stereoperimetry protocol to measure local stereopsis across the visual field (up to 25° eccentricity) to determine how locations with functional stereopsis relate to the scotomata in the two eyes.

Saccades during visual search in macular degeneration.

Macular degeneration (MD) compromises both high-acuity vision and eye movements when the foveal regions of both eyes are affected. Individuals with MD adapt to central field loss by adopting a preferred retinal locus (PRL) for fixation. Here, we investigate how individuals with bilateral MD use eye movements to search for targets in a visual scene under realistic binocular viewing conditions.

Saccadic contributions to smooth pursuit in macular degeneration.

Saccades during smooth pursuit can help bring the fovea on target, particularly in cases of low pursuit gain. Individuals with macular degeneration often suffer damage to the central retina including the fovea, which impacts oculomotor function such as fixation, saccadic and smooth pursuit eye movements. We hypothesized that these oculomotor changes in macular degeneration (MD) would make saccades less appropriately directed (even if more numerous).

Memory Fidelity Reveals Qualitative Changes in Interactions Between Items in Visual Working Memory.

Memory for objects in a display sometimes reveals attraction-the objects are remembered as more similar to one another than they actually were-and sometimes reveals repulsion-the objects are remembered as more different from one another. The conditions that lead to these opposing memory biases are poorly understood; there is no theoretical framework that explains these contrasting dynamics. In three experiments (each = 30 adults), we demonstrate that provides a unifying dimension that accommodates the existence of both types of visual working memory interactions.

Irrelevant features of distractors in intervening visual search tasks cause active visual working memory interference - the more difficult the search task, the more interference it causes.

Visual working memory (VWM) content disrupts visual search performance when there is a singleton in the search array that is similar to the content in VWM, even when this singleton is task irrelevant. Typically, the memory-similar singleton captures attention, which results in slower search performance for memory-similar conditions compared to conditions where memory-similar content is absent. Recently, it has also been shown that VWM content may be affected when memory-similar stimuli are processed.