Identification of Saccades from Event Related Spectral Dynamics during Reading

Abstract

In this study, we have used EEG data obtained during a reading activity. During the reading process, eye saccade and fixation activity are captured using dedicated hardware. We have used the data to show how the onset and progress of  eye saccades can be tracked by the presence of high frequency gamma bands in the EEG  time-frequency spectra. We also show that this tracking of eye saccades using the gamma bands can be captured by specific independent components of the EEG data. This relationship between saccades and gamma bands suggests caution in correlating gamma bands to cognitive or other neural activity.

 Keywords: EEG, Fixation, Gamma Band, Reading, Saccade