Abstract
To maintain visual stability across saccades, we should be able to transfer information from the current location to the future location. However, it is not clear whether information is transferred from the current location to the location in the direction opposite the saccade vector (opposite direction location, Rolfs et al., 2011) or from the current location to the location in the direction of the saccade vector (same direction location, Melcher, 2007). To resolve this controversy, we investigated the destination of information transfer during saccades using an object substitution masking paradigm. We first presented a cue to indicate the direction and the location of eye movements (either left or right). Participants had to move their eyes to the cued location, as soon as they heard the sound cue to initiate their eye movements. During saccade, four Landolt Cs were presented for 110 ms and one of them was simultaneously masked with 4 neighboring dots. The Landolt Cs and the four-dot mask disappeared after 110 ms, but the mask could immediately reappear in a different location depending on the following three conditions. In the opposite condition, the mask appeared in the location in the direction opposite the saccade vector. In the same condition, the mask appeared in the location in the direction of the saccade vector. In the control condition, the mask did not reappear. The mask indicated a task-relevant Landolt C (target). Participants’ task was to report the orientation of the target. When the mask was reappeared 150~0 ms prior to saccadic onset, orientation discrimination performance in the opposite condition was significantly lower than that in the same or the control condition. These results suggest that during saccades information transfer from the current location to the location in the direction opposite the saccade vector, as suggested by Rolfs et al (2011).
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2012