On the one hand, recordings from single neurons in the monkey brain led to precise measurements of the properties of neurons in most areas related to eye movement control (Bruce & Goldberg, 1985 Mays & Sparks, 1980 Robinson, 1972 Robinson & Fuchs, 1969 Wurtz & Goldberg, 1972). In line with these technological advances, insights were gained into the anatomical and physiological basis of the primate eye movement system. Over the last 20 years, big improvements were made in video-based eye tracking and its wide availability has certainly led to a strong increase in the number of investigations on eye movements.
These devices have been highly successful and are still in use. At the same time, the development of the dual Purkinje image eye tracker by SRI International (Cornsweet & Crane, 1973 Crane, 1994) allowed non-invasive, high-precision and low-noise measurements in humans. Search coils were later successfully adopted for use with human observers (Collewijn, van der Mark, & Jansen, 1975).
The development of the scleral search coil technique by David Robinson ( 1963) was a hallmark invention to measure eye position precisely and is still used in nearly all explorations into the physiology of eye movements. While some of these devices had a remarkable measurement precision, they were generally custom built and not widely available. Scientific research on eye movements began at the end of the 19th century when reliable methods for the measurement of eye position were first developed (Buswell, 1935 Huey, 1898 Orschansky, 1899 for a detailed historical overview, see Wade & Tatler, 2005 Yarbus, 1967). In our review, we will focus on these two questions, and we hope to be able to deliver at least partial answers. The fact that scientists are still asking the same questions (e.g., Tatler, 2009) shows that so far no satisfactory consensus has been reached in answer to these questions. Why do we look where we do, when viewing scenes? How are eye movements and perception related? These questions have already been raised in the now classical work of Buswell ( 1935) and Yarbus ( 1967). 1 Nonetheless, the most pertinent questions that relate to understanding gaze direction remain unchanged. Eye movement studies gained widespread attention in disciplines ranging from biology and medicine to computer science and economics. By now, the major neural pathways controlling different types of eye movements are well established, and the technology for tracking gaze position has advanced considerably and most importantly has become widely available. Eye movement research has seen massive advances during the last 50 years.
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