Non-contact eye-tracking on cats

The objective of visual systems neuroscience has shifted over the past few years from determining the receptive fields of cells towards the understanding of higher level cognition in awake animals viewing natural stimuli. In experiments with awake animals it is important to control the relevant aspects of behavior. Most important for vision science is the control of the direction of gaze. Here we present Dual Purkinje eye-tracking on cats, which—as a non-contact method—brings a number of advantages. Along with the presented methods for calibration and for synchronization to off-the-shelf video presentation hardware, this method allows high precision experiments to be performed on cats freely viewing videos of natural scenes.