A system outlook on the vision problem associated with observation of light flickering at the micro-saccades' frequency

TL;DR

This paper investigates how flickering fluorescent lights, with frequencies near micro-saccadic eye movements, disturb vision in certain populations, proposing a system model and analyzing waveform singularities' effects on eye control.

Contribution

It introduces a constructive framework and a block-diagram model for understanding light flickering effects on vision, focusing on the coincidence of flicker and micro-saccades frequencies.

Findings

Waveform singularities may influence brain control of eye tremors.

Coincidence of flicker and micro-saccades frequencies can disturb vision.

A proposed system model helps analyze light flickering impact on vision.

Abstract

The flickering of the light of fluorescent lamps (FL), whose basic frequency, 100 Hz, is close to that of the micro-saccadic (the eye-muscles' tremor component) eye movement, is a severe problem for autists (autistic humans), a problem for newborn babies, for people after some traumatic accidents, and for some 10% of otherwise absolutely normal humans. Taking the line of a "system-terms" discussion of the vision-disturbance problem, the present work provides a constructive framework for investigating the problem. Using the results of light intensity measurements and some simple analytical models for the instantaneous light-intensity function, and analyzing the role of the coincidence (closeness) of the frequencies of the ripple of and the micro saccades, we suggest a block-diagram for the biological vision control system. We also show that a singularity of the waveform of, which is typical for most FL, may be important for brain control of the eye tremor. The latter conclusion is supported by a simulation of the image intensity on retina.