{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,12]],"date-time":"2026-09-12T06:20:35Z","timestamp":1789194035666,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":35,"publisher":"National Academy of Sciences","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,4]],"date-time":"2025-02-04T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1738627200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001711","name":"Swiss National Science Foundation","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["CRSII5_173728"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["CRSII5_173728"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001711","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100007569","name":"Carl Zeiss Foundation","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["HC-AOSLO"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["HC-AOSLO"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100007569","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"name":"Emmy Noether Program","award":["Ha 5323\/5-1"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Ha 5323\/5-1"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.pnas.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,11]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Perception and action are inherently entangled: our world view is shaped by how we explore our environment through complex and variable self-motion. Even when fixating stable stimuli, our eyes undergo small, involuntary movements. Fixational eye movements (FEM) render a stable world jittery on our retinae, which can be expected to harm neural coding. Yet, empirical evidence suggests that FEM help rather than harm human perception of fine detail. Here, we elucidate this paradox by uncovering under which conditions FEM improve or impair retinal coding and human acuity. We combine theory and experiment: model accuracy is directly compared to that of healthy human subjects in a visual acuity task. Acuity is modeled by applying an ideal Bayesian classifier to simulations of retinal spiking activity in the presence of FEM. In addition, empirical FEM are monitored using high-resolution eye-tracking by an adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope. FEM introduce variability in retinal ganglion cell activity, but they also effectively preprocess inputs to facilitate retinal information encoding. Based on an interplay of these mechanisms, our model predicts a relation between visual acuity, FEM amplitude, and single-trial stimulus size that quantitatively accounts for experimental observations and captures the beneficial effect of FEM. Moreover, we observe that while human subjects\u2019 FEM statistics vary with stimulus size, our model suggests that subjects\u2019 FEM amplitude remains within a near-optimal range, where acuity is enhanced compared to much larger or smaller amplitudes. Overall, our findings indicate that perception benefits from action even at the fine spatiotemporal scale of FEM.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.2416266122","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,4]],"date-time":"2025-02-04T10:11:06Z","timestamp":1738663866000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.cm10313","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["Fixational eye movements as active sensation for high visual acuity"],"prefix":"10.1073","volume":"122","author":[{"given":"Trang-Anh E.","family":"Nghiem","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"D\u00e9partement de Physique","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Ecole Normale Sup\u00e9rieure","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Universit\u00e9 Paris Sciences et Lettres","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Sorbonne Universit\u00e9","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Universit\u00e9 de Paris","place":["Paris, France"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7500-7053","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jenny L.","family":"Witten","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Ophthalmology","place":["Bonn, Germany"]},{"name":"Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universit\u00e4t Bonn","place":["Bonn, Germany"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1543-4912","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Oscar","family":"Dufour","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"D\u00e9partement de Physique","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Ecole Normale Sup\u00e9rieure","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Universit\u00e9 Paris Sciences et Lettres","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Sorbonne Universit\u00e9","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Universit\u00e9 de Paris","place":["Paris, France"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7053-1198","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Wolf M.","family":"Harmening","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Ophthalmology","place":["Bonn, Germany"]},{"name":"Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universit\u00e4t Bonn","place":["Bonn, Germany"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Rava","family":"Azeredo da Silveira","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"D\u00e9partement de Physique","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Ecole Normale Sup\u00e9rieure","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Universit\u00e9 Paris Sciences et Lettres","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Sorbonne Universit\u00e9","place":["Paris, France"]},{"name":"Universit\u00e9 de Paris","place":["Paris, France"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"341","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,4]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_4_1_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1167\/13.10.22"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1006076107"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_3_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pbio.0050331"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_4_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1167\/3.11.18"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_5_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/nature05866"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_6_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.6612334"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_7_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1098\/rstb.2000.0732"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_8_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0042-6989(00)00237-6"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_9_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1167\/17.1.30"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_10_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1167\/jov.20.7.34"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_11_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7554\/eLife.98648.3"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_12_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cub.2012.01.050"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_13_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev-vision-082114-035742"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_14_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.tins.2015.01.005"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_15_2","first-page":"1137","article-title":"Visual encoding with jittering eyes","volume":"18","author":"Rucci M.","year":"2005","unstructured":"M. Rucci, Visual encoding with jittering eyes. Adv. Neural. Inf. Process. Syst. 18, 1137\u20131144 (2005).","journal-title":"Adv. Neural. Inf. Process. Syst."},{"key":"e_1_3_4_16_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/09548980500300507"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_17_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"S. B. Stevenson A. Roorda G. Kumar \u201cEye tracking with the adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope\u201d in Proceedings of the 2010 Symposium on Eye-Tracking Research Applications (2010) pp. 195\u2013198.","DOI":"10.1145\/1743666.1743714"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_18_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3306346.3323024"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_19_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41467-020-14616-2"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_20_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.neuron.2020.09.014"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_21_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cell.2017.01.005"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_22_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1167\/jov.21.11.16"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_23_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/s41467-022-29201-y"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_24_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1167\/18.5.8"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_25_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1167\/13.6.18"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_26_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"S. Poonja S. Patel L. Henry A. Roorda Dynamic visual stimulus presentation in an adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope. J. Refract. Surg. 21 S575\u2013S580 (2005).","DOI":"10.3928\/1081-597X-20050901-30"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_27_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1364\/OE.10.000405"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_28_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1523\/JNEUROSCI.5191-13.2014"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_29_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3758\/BF03202828"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_30_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cub.2021.07.005"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_31_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1167\/iovs.62.9.31"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_32_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1364\/OE.18.017841"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_33_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/0042-6989(94)00253-I"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_34_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.85.12.4534"},{"key":"e_1_3_4_35_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"T.-A. Nghiem J. L. Witten O. Dufour W. M. Harmening R. Azeredo da Silveira Data and code for manuscript: Fixational eye movements as active sensation for high visual acuity. Mendeley Data V1. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17632\/p7dyyrfds6.1. Deposited 6 January 2025.","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.2416266122"}],"container-title":["Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/pnas.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1073\/pnas.2416266122","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,14]],"date-time":"2025-02-14T16:56:44Z","timestamp":1739552204000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/pnas.org\/doi\/10.1073\/pnas.2416266122"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,4]]},"references-count":35,"journal-issue":{"issue":"6","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,11]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1073\/pnas.2416266122"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.2416266122","relation":{"has-preprint":[{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.1101\/2022.04.26.489583","asserted-by":"object"}]},"ISSN":["0027-8424","1091-6490"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0027-8424","type":"print"},{"value":"1091-6490","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,2,4]]},"assertion":[{"value":"2024-08-14","order":0,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}},{"value":"2024-12-10","order":2,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}},{"value":"2025-02-04","order":3,"name":"published","label":"Published","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}}],"article-number":"e2416266122"}}