Eye Movements of Preschool Children

Accurate recordings of eye movements of children 4 and 5 years old show that their eye movements differed from those of adults. During maintained fixation, saccades were large (1 degree to 2 degrees) and smooth eye movement speeds were high (45 minutes of arc per second). Saccade latencies were highly variable during target step tracking. Smooth pursuit latencies were longer than those of adults. These hitherto unknown characteristics limit a child's ability to use eye movements to acquire visual information.