Abstract
With each saccade, internal object representations change their retinal position and spatial resolution. The same object will be represented with high acuity in the fovea but only coarsely in periphery. Recently, we suggested that the visual system deals with these saccade induced changes by predicting visual features across saccades (Herwig & Schneider, 2014, JEP:G). Such predictions are assumed to be based on transsaccadic associations of peripheral and foveal input causing peripheral perception to be biased toward previously associated foveal input. Up to now, effects of transsaccadic feature prediction on peripheral perception have been exclusively reported for saccade targets presented at previous learning locations. In the present study, we tested whether feature prediction is bound to the saccade target location and/or the previous learning location. Replicating the study of Herwig and Schneider (2014) participants first underwent an acquisition phase, where, unnoticed by most participants, one out of two objects systematically changed its spatial frequency during saccades. In the following modified test phase, participants had to judge the frequency of briefly presented peripheral target objects (PTO). Saccades were either directed at a PTO or at another neutral object presented at the same eccentricity. Moreover, PTOs could be presented either at the previous learning location or at obliquely displaced locations. Following acquisition, spatial frequency of PTOs was perceived as lower (higher) if they previously changed from high (low) in the periphery to low (high) in the fovea indicating transsaccadic feature prediction. Importantly, this pattern was seen only at the previous learning location independent of the PTO being the saccade target object or not. These results indicate that peripheral perception of spatial frequency is specifically biased toward previously associated postsaccadic foveal input. They further suggest that feature prediction is bound to the previous learning location but not to the saccade target location.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2016