Effects of a single green flash versus a white flash of light on saccadic oculomotor metrics

White light encompasses all wavelengths of the visible optical spectrum while variations of green light cover only a fraction. Saccades comprise a considerable portion of ocular activity and have been used for research in neurology, cognitive processing, reading, and weaponry design. The goal of this experiment was to study how different energies of light affect the saccadic oculomotor system. This was tested by white and green photic stimulation in eleven and eight subjects respectively as they visually attempted to locate a target. The subject was presented with a target: 15 degrees to either the right or left from the midline with no photic stimulus (control), 15 degrees to the right or left accompanied by a photic stimulus at: midline, 15 degrees to the left, or 15 degrees to the right. Data were collected using the Skalar infrared limbic tracking system and a custom LabVIEW program. Dynamics were quantified with a latency analysis and the time to acquire ± one degree of the target analysis using MatLAB. Results show that an increase in latency occurs during target location accompanied by a photic stimulus compared to target location accompanied by no photic stimulus, and that green light has a more robust effect on saccadic metrics than white light.