saccades-fixation eye movement

Saccades are rapid, intermittent eye movements that redirect gaze, allowing the fovea—the area of the retina with the sharpest vision—to focus on points of interest in the visual scene. These movements can be reflexive, triggered by peripheral stimuli, or voluntary, driven by the need to seek information.1

During a saccade, vision is impaired due to image blur from rapid movement and a process called saccadic suppression, which temporarily blocks vision. Between saccades, the eyes remain stationary in fixations, lasting about 190 milliseconds on average, during which visual information is gathered. The speed and duration of saccades vary with their size, from tiny microsaccades to larger movements up to 100 degrees. This saccade-and-fixate pattern is a primary way humans process visual information.12