Abstract
I review neuro-computational models of peri-saccadic spatial perception that provide insight into the neural mechanisms of spatial updating around eye movements. Most of the experimental observations can be explained by only two different models, one involves spatial attention directed towards the saccade target and the other relies on predictive remapping and gain-fields for coordinate transformation. The latter model uses two eye related signals: a predictive corollary discharge and eye position, which updates after saccade. While spatial attention is mainly responsible for peri-saccadic compression, predictive remapping (in LIP) and gain-fields for coordinate transformation can account for the shift of briefly flashed bars in total darkness and for the increase of the threshold in peri-saccadic displacement detection. With respect to the updating of sustained spatial attention, recently, two different types were discovered. One study shows that attention lingers after saccade at the (irrelevant) retinotopic position, another shows that shortly before saccade onset, spatial attention is remapped to a position opposite to the saccade direction. I show new results which demonstrate that both observations are not contradictory and emerge through model dynamics: The lingering of attention is explained by the (late-updating) eye position signal, which establishes an attention pointer in an eye-reference frame. This reference shifts with the saccade and updates attention to the initial position only after saccade. The remapping of attention opposite to the saccade direction is explained by the corollary discharge signal, which establishes a transient eye-reference frame, anticipates the saccade and thus updates attention prior to saccade onset.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2018