Eye to I: Recognising own eye movements

Studies show that people can recognise their own movements, such as their own walking (presented in silhouette using point lights), their own drawing (presented as a moving point light), own clapping, and their own piano playing. We extend this result to proprioceptive control, showing that people can recognise their own eye movements, when presented as just a point moving against a black background. Eye movements were recorded using a wearable eye tracking glass, while participants executed four tasks. A week later, participants were shown these videos, alongside another person’s videos, for each task, and asked to recognise their own movements. Males recognised their own eye movements significantly above chance, but only for tasks with large and familiar body movements. Females performed below chance in these tasks. We argue that the standard common coding/motor simulation model does not account for this result, and propose an extension where eye movements and body movements are strongly coupled. In this model, eye movements automatically trigger covert motor activation, and thus participate directly in motor planning, simulations and the sense of agency.