The efficiency of the central and peripheral retina in driving human optokinetic nystagmus.

Previous experiments to decide whether the gain of optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) is increased or decreased by occlusion of the central retina involved the use of stationary edges on the occluder and unmatched contrasts. With these factors controlled, it was confirmed that OKN gain is severely reduced by occlusion of the central retina but only at stimulus velocities above about 30 degrees/sec. The gain of horizontal OKN was found not to increase with increasing width of the display if the lateral edges are blurred. The high gain of centrally driven OKN may be related to the ability of higher mammals to stabilize the images of objects at a given distance in a complex parallactic visual field.