Stephanie Reeves

I am a current Vision Science PhD student working with Dr. Jorge Otero-Millan in the Ocular Motor Lab at UC Berkeley.

My research focuses on how visual perception and the ocular motor system are influenced by changes in the alignment between the eyes, head, and direction of gravity. I use custom-built eye trackers, HMDs, and stereoscopic (haploscope) displays to improve our understanding of eye movements and vision. Welcome!

LinkedIn | Google Scholar

Research Projects

Investigating the role of simulated ocular counter roll on stereoacuity

poster

Horizontal binocular disparity is crucial for stereopsis. However, ocular counter roll in response to head tilt reduces retinal horizontal disparity and induces vertical disparity. Here we asked whether simulated OCR influences stereoacuity. We found that 30° of simulated OCR worsens stereoacuity, but not beyond what is prediced by the reduction in horizontal disparities alone. This suggests that that our natural, limited amount of OCR (less than 10° in humans for any head tilt) may be optimized for stereopsis.

Saccade directions are biased due to egocentric constraints and environmental regularities

Here we tested the hypothesis that the saccade direction bias exists in part due to orientation biases present in natural images combined with egocentric saccade generation biases. When we implemented a model of saccade target selection that combined allocentric and egocentric biases, we found that this model simulated saccade distributions that more closely resembled those of saccades made by real humans in response to image tilt than ones generated by saliency alone.

The influence of scene tilt on saccade directions is amplitude dependent

paper | code | poster

Previous work has shown that the saccade direction bias rotates in response to scene tilt, but it is unclear if all saccades are influenced by image orientation the same way. Our experiment showed that small amplitude saccades occurred most in the horizontal direction (during both free viewing and fixation) while large amplitude saccades were more oriented to the scene tilt. There may be two reference frames in saccade generation: one egocentric reference frame that dominates for small saccades and biases them horizontally, and another allocentric reference frame that biases larger saccades along the orientation of an image.

Head orientation influences saccade directions during free viewing

paper | code

In humans, saccades are predominantly executed along the cardinal axes, particularly in the horizontal direction. It is unknown whether this "horizontal" saccade bias is related to the orientation of the head or the image being viewed, or both. We found that head orientation influences saccade directions: when viewing an abstract image, saccades are biased horizontally per a retinal reference frame; when viewing a natural scene, saccade directions are executed between the head and scene orientation.

Get In Touch

If any of my projects are interesting to you, feel free to say hi! I am always eager to chat science and would love to hear from you. You can find me on campus on the 4th floor of Minor Hall, or reach me via email.

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Reeves, S. M., Otero-Millan, J. (2023) The influence of scene tilt on saccade directions is amplitude dependent. Journal of Neurological Sciences, 448. DOI: 10.1016/j.jns.2023.120635.

Reeves, S. M., Cooper, E., Rodriguez, R., Otero-Millan, J. (2022) Head tilt influences saccade directions during free viewing. eNeuro, 0273-22.2022. DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0273-22.2022.

Reeves, S., Williams, V., Blacker, D., Woods, R. (2022) Further evaluation of narrative description as a measure of cognitive function in Alzheimer’s Disease. Neuropsychology. DOI: 10.1037/neu0000884.

Costela, F., Reeves, S., Woods, R. (2021) The effect of zoom magnification and large display on video comprehension in individuals with central vision loss. Translational Vision Science & Technology, 10(8): 30.

Costela, F., Reeves, S., Woods, R. (2021) An implementation of Bubble Magnification did not improve the video comprehension of individuals with central vision loss. Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, 41(4): 842-852.

Reeves, S., Williams, V., Costela, F., Palumbo, R., Umoren, O., Christopher, M., Blacker, D., Woods, R. (2020) Narrative video scene description task discriminates between levels of cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s Disease. Neuropsychology, 34(4): 437-446.

Costela, F., Reeves, S., Woods, R. (2020) Orientation of preferred retinal locus (PRL) is maintained following changes in simulated scotoma size. Journal of Vision, 20(7): 25.

Costela, F., Saunders, D., Rose, D., Katjezovic, S., Reeves, S., Woods, R. (2019) People with central vision loss have difficulty watching videos. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 60(1): 358-364.

Conference Proceedings & Invited Talks

2024

Reeves, S. (Talk) Why vestibular reflexes may change with vergence. Oxyopia Seminar Series. Berkeley, California.

Reeves, S., Otero-Millan, J. (Talk) Environmental regularities are predictive of saccade direction biases via combination of allocentric and egocentric mechanisms. European Conference on Visual Perception. Aberdeen, Scotland.

Reeves, S., Otero-Millan, J. (Poster) Reeves, S., Otero-Millan, J. (2024) The influence of ocular counter roll from simulated head tilt on stereoacuity. International Multisensory Research Forum. Reno, Nevada.

Reeves, S., Otero-Millan, J. (Talk) The influence of simulated ocular counter roll on stereoacuity. Vision Science Society Conference. St. Pete, Florida.

2023

Reeves, S. (Talk) The influence of head and scene orientation on the ocular motor system. Center for Innovation in Vision and Optics (CIVO) Annual Meeting. Berkeley, California.

Reeves, S. (Talk) The influence of head and scene orientation on the ocular motor system. Oxyopia Seminar Series. Berkeley, California.

Reeves, S., Otero-Millan, J. (Poster) Factors influencing saccade directions in response to image tilt. Gordon Research Conference on Eye Movements. South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Otero-Millan, J., Reeves, S. (Poster) Eye torsion induced by a tilted image is larger during free viewing than fixation. Vision Science Society Conference. St. Pete, Florida.

2022

Reeves, S., Otero-Millan, J. (Poster) Microsaccade directions are not influenced by the orientation of natural scene tilt during fixation. Vision Science Society Conference. St. Pete, Florida.

2021

Reeves, S. (Talk) Effect of head tilt on saccade direction biases during free viewing. Center for Innovation in Vision and Optics (CIVO) Annual Meeting. Berkeley, California.

Reeves, S., Cooper, E., Rodriguez, R., Otero-Millan, J. (Talk) Head tilt influences saccade directions during free viewing. Society for Neuroscience Conference. Chicago, Illinois.

2020

Reeves, S., Elze, T., Costela, F., Sandberg, M., Weigel-DiFranco, C., Woods, R. (Poster) Goldmann visual field patterns in retinitis pigmentosa from unsupervised machine learning. Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. Baltimore, Maryland.

2019

Reeves, S., Williams, V., Blacker, D., Woods, R. (Poster) Measuring cognitive impairment using a test of visual scene comprehension. Asia Pacific Conference on Vision. Osaka, Japan.