Eye Movements and Psychological Processes

This book, based on a symposium held in April 1974, contains sections on most aspects of the psychophysics and physiology of eye movements and their role in the visual system and in perception. It is regrettable that this field has been somewhat overlooked by ophthalmologists because it encompasses a wide range of phenomena that not only are immensely interesting but also form a basis for the diagnosis of organic disease often mistaken as functional. The first chapter, in five sections, describes the physiology of eye movement control as understood in 1974, and there is a chapter on techniques of recording and measuring eye movements. The other five chapters relate eye movements to the maintenance of vision, to visual perception, detection, and scanning, and to reading and higher mental processes. There are inevitably some gaps in the area covered, but the individual chapters, many of which are written by distinguished investigators, are coherent and interesting. Although several other books published in the last few years have covered this subject, this one is particularly well laid out and carefully edited. It will appeal not only to physiologists interested in vision and eye movement but also to a few clinicians continuing to widen their education. D. TAYLOR