Research Project

When we move through our environment and carry out everyday activities, we perform countless eye movements (saccades). They are not only essential for visual perception, but also for interacting with our environment as they guide, for example, reaching and grasping movements. Saccades are very fast and of such short duration that they cannot be guided by visual information once they are in flight. Thus, visual feedback regarding saccade accuracy is only available after the saccade has landed. If the visual feedback indicates a discrepancy between the expected and actual landing position of the saccade, corrective saccades toward the target are made. However, visual feedback presented immediately after the eye movement not only enables corrective saccades, but also induces fast and unconscious learning. In this way, the highly adaptive saccades quickly adjust to error signals and maintain their accuracy.

My research project aims to examine how post-saccadic feedback signals have to be designed to induce learning of new action-perception contingencies in an efficient and natural way.

PhD Committee

Prof. Dr. Markus Lappe, University of Muenster, Germany
Dr. Svenja Gremmler, University of Muenster, Germany
Prof. Dr. Annalisa Bosco, University of Bologna, Italy

CV

since 2019	PhD Student at the Institute of Psychology, University of Muenster, Germany
2017 - 2019	Master studies in Psychology with specialization in Cognitive Neurosciences, University of Muenster, Germany
2014 - 2017	Bachelor studies in Psychology, University of Muenster, Germany
*1994	Braunschweig, Germany

Pubications

Heins, F. and Lappe, M. (2022) Flexible use of post-saccadic visual feedback in oculomotor learning. Journal of Vision (2022), 22(1):3, 1-16

Heins, F, and Lappe, M. (2022) Mislocalization after inhibition of saccadic adaptation. Journal of Vision (2022) 22(8):3, 1–23

Heins, F., Meermeier, A., & Lappe, M. (2019). Volitional control of saccadic adaptation. PloS one, 14(1), e0210020. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0210020

Conference Contributions

Heins, F., Meermeier, A.,& Lappe, M. (2018). Saccadic Adaptation Can Be Volitionally Controlled. Poster presented at the European Conference on Visual Perception (Trieste, Italy, 2018).