Different potential explanations that have garnered some recent debate (Burr, Tozzi, & Morrone,
2007; Duhamel, Bremmer, Ben Hamed, & Graf,
1997; Harrison & Bex,
2014; Harrison, Mattingley, & Remington,
2012; Melcher,
2005; Morris, Bremmer, & Krekelberg,
2016; Morris & Krekelberg,
2019; Rolfs, Jonikaitis, Deubel, & Cavanagh,
2011; Turi & Burr,
2012; Zimmermann, Burr, & Morrone,
2011; Zimmermann, Morrone, Fink, & Burr,
2013; Zirnsak & Moore,
2014) are that either these RF modulations predictively remap a retinocentric representation purely in compensation for the upcoming retinal motion or they are involved in constructing a stable spatial map of the visual scene. Importantly, the remapping theoretically could be solved by two different mechanisms: either by tilting the orientation tuning towards the final ORT (similar to shifting spatial tuning across saccades; Duhamel et al.,
1992), or by tilting the tuning away from the final ORT (similar to remapping neural activation in the direction opposite to the saccade; Rolfs et al.,
2011). In the presence of torsional motion of the retinal image, these two models produce different predictions (
Figure 1). In the one scenario (
Figure 1B), the representation is remapped according to the preprogrammed spatial saccadic endpoint and accounting for the retino-spatial 3D geometry, such that the perception updates ballistically ahead of the eye. Under this hypothesis, there is a presaccadic remapping stage at which orientation perception is tilted in the direction of the saccade endpoint. While the eye is in flight, orientation perception leads the actual retinal projection. Therefore, at the midpoint of a symmetric trajectory, the perception of a spatially vertical tree is tilted towards the upcoming saccadic endpoint retinal projection. In the other scenario (
Figure 1C), the perception is predictively remapped according to the vector difference between the initial retinal projection and that at the next time-step, such that the perception dynamically follows the eye. Under this hypothesis, there is a presaccadic remapping stage at which orientation perception is titled away from the saccade endpoint, allowing the perceptual system to account for visuomotor delays during motion to maintain a retinally accurate perception. Because of this predictive compensation, while the eye is in flight, orientation perception continuously matches the retinal projection. Therefore, near the midpoint of the same symmetric trajectory, the perception of a spatially vertical tree matches its projection onto the retina.