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A brief look through the literature didn't reveal any algorithms that have been directly applied to the online prediction of saccade landing sites while a saccade is in progress.

While there would surely be considerable noise in any such estimate, the direction vector, velocity and acceleration profiles should contain sufficient information to make a reasonable guess. Is anyone aware of any papers which have attempted such an approach?

Also, how good an estimate of landing site could be derived, and how early prior to landing could this estimate be made. What methods would be suggested for making such an estimate?

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Your question is pretty vague. At what point during the saccade would you like to calculate the landing position? The main problem is distance because at some point all saccades over a certain distance reach maximum velocity and while the saccade is in that state the landing point is inestimable. –  John May 21 '13 at 14:03
@JohnChristie Thanks for your comments. This question is primarily aimed to inquire whether previous work on this has been done. Also, I ask the question "how early prior to landing could this estimate be made." From this, the implication is that I would be interested in knowing landing site as early as possible (if possible at all). If it is known that peak velocity has been reached, and the current distance travelled is known would this not constrain the likely endpoint at least to some reasonable degree? –  skleene May 21 '13 at 14:42
I don't know anything about this topic, but recently during a presentation at work I heard mentioning that they can predict landing sites to some degree while the saccade is in progress. They were using this technique during an experiment. Definitely an interesting question! –  Steven Jeuris May 21 '13 at 15:13
There is a lot of work on predicting fixation patterns during reading, scene perception/exploration, and naturalistic tasks (making a sandwich, navigating around obstacles, etc.). As far as I know, these predictions are typically made based on the structure of the text/scene/task, not during each saccade. Is there a reason you want to make the prediction specifically during a saccade? –  Dan M. May 21 '13 at 16:51
@DanM. I think you are right, in that most people are interested in understanding global characteristics of where the eyes fall during activities such as, say scene perception. Predicting saccade landing sites online once a saccade has been launched is theoretically much more mundane. I've been speculating about using such a prediction in my work to do a gaze contingent manipulation of the content located at a potential saccade landing site. –  skleene May 22 '13 at 8:23
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