Saccades guided by somatosensory stimuli

The accuracy of somatosensory saccades defined by proprioceptive cues with and without an additional tactile stimulus was investigated over a wide ran ge of stimulus amplitudes in 16 normal subjects. The present results confir m that somatosensory saccades are less accurate and more variable than visu al saccades. Accuracy was minimal for saccades directed to hand distances o f 40-50 deg and increased for larger stimulus amplitudes. The additional ap plication of a tactile cue on the fingertip was not found to influence the accuracy of somatosensory saccades significantly. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.