Multi-stepping saccadic sequences in humans

A number of paradigms are reported in which multi-stepping saccadic sequences (MSS) are reliably elicited in normal subjects. It was observed that MSS are consistently associated with a prolongation of the initial saccade latency. Further experiments show that this phenomenon is validated across a number of independent eye movement tasks. However, the probability of MSS occurring is reduced when temporal constraints are imposed on the latency of the response. An interpretation of these task-elicited MSS in terms of the neural mechanisms controlling voluntary saccades is proposed.