Multiple factors likely contribute to the changes in detectability around the time of saccades. First, the small stimuli flashed during a saccade generate motion signals (on the moving retina) with spatiotemporal properties for which even visual neurons specialized for motion have low sensitivity (e.g., Krekelberg & van Wezel,
2013; Nover,
2005). Second, shearing forces in the retina generated by the rapid acceleration of the eye could further reduce sensitivity to light (Castet, Jeanjean, & Masson,
2001, but see Ross, Morrone, Goldberg, & Burr,
2001). Third, behavioral experiments show that backward masking by the postsaccadic scene strongly reduces detectability of intrasaccadic visual input (Campbell & Wurtz,
1978; Castet, Jeanjean, & Masson,
2002; García-Pérez & Peli,
2011). At the neural level, backward masking has been attributed to the interaction between the V1 response to the mask and the transient off-response to the target (Macknik & Livingstone,
1998). Whether this neural mechanism can fully account for reduced detectability at the time of saccades, however, has not yet been investigated. Fourth, across the visual hierarchy, changes in neural sensitivity have been documented that cannot be explained by either of the first three factors, because they occur in complete darkness (Kagan, Gur, & Snodderly,
2008), or well before the eyes start to move (Bremmer, Kubischik, Hoffmann, & Krekelberg,
2009; Rajkai et al.,
2008). Assuming that any change in the response properties of visual neurons potentially contributes to changes in detectability, these findings support the view that so-called central or extraretinal signals contribute to perisaccadic changes in detectability. Here too, a direct link between specific neural and behavioral changes is lacking (for review, see Ibbotson & Krekelberg,
2011). In the future, we plan to use the paradigms developed here to perform combined behavioral and electrophysiological studies that provide more specific insight into which of these mechanisms (or their interaction, Ibbotson & Cloherty,
2009) dominates perisaccadic perception.