Research interests

All my research, beginning when I was a PhD student at University College London in 1963, has been on different aspects of animal and human vision.

My early interests were in the optics of the eyes of marine animals: scallops, shrimps and deep water crustaceans. In parallel with this I studied visual behaviour in spiders and insects, with a particular interest in the control systems that guide pursuit behaviour. This led to an interest in eye movements in animals and, since about 1990, in man.

Our group in Sussex is now mainly concerned with the roles that eye movements play in visually guided behaviour in man - especially driving, music reading, ball games and "activities of everyday living". The rest of the animal kingdom has not been forgotten, however, and with Julia Horwood I am working on the processing of visual information by the retinas of mosquitoes.

 Specific research projects and collaborators

I am involved to varying extents in all of the research projects conducted by our group. To find out more about these projects follow the link to our research home page. From here you will be able to follow links to find out more about the individual projects.

 Selected publications

Land MF, Nilsson D-E (2002) Animal Eyes. Oxford University Press.

Land MF, Tatler BW (2001) Steering with the head: the visual strategy of a racing driver. Current Biology 11: 1215-1220

Land MF, Hayhoe M (2001) In what ways do eye movements contribute to everyday activities. Vision Research 41: 3559-3565

Land MF, McLeod P (2000) From eye movements to actions: how batsmen hit the ball. Nature Neuroscience 3: 1340-1345

Land MF (2000) On the functions of double eyes in mid-water animals. Phil Trans R Soc Lond B 355: 1147-1150

Land MF, Mennie N, Rusted J (1999) The roles of vision and eye movements in the control of activities of daily living. Perception 28: 1311-1328

Land MF (1999) Motion and vision: why animals move their eyes. J Comp Physiol 185: 341-352

Land MF (1998) The visual control of steering. In: Vision and Action (eds Harris LR & Jenkin K) 163-180. Cambridge University Press

This page is maintained by Ben Tatler (b.w.tatler@sussex.ac.uk)

Last updated 26 July 2004