Control of voluntary and reflexive saccades

The latency of 'reflexive' saccades (made in response to peripheral visual stimuli) was compared to that of 'voluntary' saccades performed in anti-sac cade and symbolically cued paradigms. Manipulation of visual events at fixa tion was carefully controlled across all conditions. Reflexive saccade late ncy was significantly faster than the latency of all forms of voluntary sac cades. Importantly, the latency of saccades made after presentation of a sy mbolic cue at central fixation (voluntary arrow-cue condition) was greater than that made in the anti-saccade paradigm that requires suppression of a reflexive response. It is suggested that the increase in latency of saccade s made in the voluntary arrow-cut condition may reflect differences in prog ramming a 'When' trigger signal for saccades made in the absence of a perip heral stimulus.