Spatially Oriented Behavior

Spatially oriented behavior requires that the goals to~ard which actions are directed be localized with respect to a body reference. This requirement would obviously not be a problem for an ideal organism in which sensory receptors would be kept in constant relation to the body reference. In that case, the retinal locus to which a visual object projected would have unambiguous spatial value. In most animals, however, and certainly in man, the relationship of retinal coordinates to body axis varies with movements of the eye and head. Therefore, behavior directed at an object located in extrapersonal space cannot rely solely on the position of its image on the retina. As stressed by Miles and Evarts (1979), reconstruction of the position of an object in space relative to the body requires summation of three signals Front Matter....Pages i-xvii How Do We Direct Our Actions in Space?....Pages 1-13 Maintenance of Equilibrium During Movement....Pages 15-33 Neural Mechanisms of Visual Orientation in Rodents: Targets Versus Places....Pages 35-61 Role of the Monkey Superior Colliculus in the Spatial Localization of Saccade Targets....Pages 63-85 Interface of Visual Input and Oculomotor Command for Directing the Gaze on Target....Pages 87-103 Coordination of Eye-Head Movements in Alert Monkeys: Behavior of Eye-Related Neurons in the Brain Stem....Pages 105-118 Contribution of Eye Movement to the Representation of Space....Pages 119-133 Control of the Optokinetic Reflex by the Nucleus of the Optic Tract in the Cat....Pages 135-153 Development of Optokinetic Nystagmus and Effects of Abnormal Visual Experience During Infancy....Pages 155-174 Spatially Determined Visual Activity in Early Infancy....Pages 175-195 Spatial Sense of the Human Infant....Pages 197-213 Space, the Organism and Objects, Their Cognitive Elaboration in the Infant....Pages 215-222 Motion Parallax Sensitivity and Space Perception....Pages 223-242 Perceptual Consequences of Experimental Extraocular Muscle Paralysis....Pages 243-262 Mechanisms of Space Constancy....Pages 263-279 Visual Information Processing for Saccadic Eye Movements....Pages 281-303 Optic Ataxia: A Specific Disorder in Visuomotor Coordination....Pages 305-326 Multimodal Structure of the Extrapersonal Space....Pages 327-352 Back Matter....Pages 353-365