Significance of Listing's Law

By staying on Listing's plane (i.e. q1 = 0) :
  • the effort to hold an eccentric position both during saccades and after saccades is minimized.
  • but sub-optimal rotations (w) are needed so that position (q) remains optimal.

Why optimize q not w ?

  • Work against viscosity depends on eye velocity. Most of the time the eye is still. Thus over the course of a day, work against elasticity is larger than work against viscosity.

 

Copyright © 1996 Tutis Vilis and Douglas Tweed
University of Western Ontario
London Ontario Canada
Updated October 28, 2005

Comments welcome. Email to tutis.vilis@schulich.uwo.ca