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Predictive remapping of visual features precedes saccadic eye movements

Nature Neuroscience volume 10, pages 903–907 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

The frequent occurrence of saccadic eye movements raises the question of how information is combined across separate glances into a stable, continuous percept. Here I show that visual form processing is altered at both the current fixation position and the location of the saccadic target before the saccade. When human observers prepared to follow a displacement of the stimulus with the eyes, visual form adaptation was transferred from current fixation to the future gaze position. This transfer of adaptation also influenced the perception of test stimuli shown at an intermediate position between fixation and saccadic target. Additionally, I found a presaccadic transfer of adaptation when observers prepared to move their eyes toward a stationary adapting stimulus in peripheral vision. The remapping of visual processing, demonstrated here with form adaptation, may help to explain our impression of a smooth transition, with no temporal delay, of visual perception across glances.

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Figure 1: Design of the first experiment.
Figure 2: The proportion of full TAE measured for test stimuli presented at varying time periods before or after the saccade.
Figure 3: The proportion of full TAE as a function of the timing of the test stimulus in experiments 2 and 3.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the British Academy and the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Trento e Rovereto.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Mind/Brain Studies and Department of Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Corso Bettini 31, Rovereto, 38068, Italy

    David Melcher

  2. Department of Psychology, Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane, Oxford, OX3 0BP, UK

    David Melcher

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  1. David Melcher
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Correspondence to David Melcher.

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The author declares no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Fig. 1

Measurement of the functional extent of tilt adaptation for each participant. (PDF 5 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 2

Control experiment to test whether attention shifts would lead to remapping of tilt adaptation. (PDF 49 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 3

Control experiment to measure the ability of observers to perceive and report the brief test stimulus. (PDF 1905 kb)

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Melcher, D. Predictive remapping of visual features precedes saccadic eye movements. Nat Neurosci 10, 903–907 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1917

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