When saccades are planned to moving targets, the resulting smooth eye movements for postsaccadic tracking can be predictive (Heinen, Badler, & Ting,
2005; Kowler,
1989; Kowler, Aitkin, Ross, Santos, & Zhao,
2014; Spering, Schütz, Braun, & Gegenfurtner,
2011). Voluntary tracking of moving targets typically involves smooth eye movements that nearly match the direction and velocity of the target (Lisberger & Westbrook,
1985; for review, see Lisberger, Morris, & Tychsen,
1987). Humans are able to track targets with a linear dependence on speed that has gain close to unity for speeds up to 45° of visual angle (dva) per second (Buizza & Schmid,
1986; Tychsen & Lisberger,
1986). But tracking targets across visual scenes typically involves a combination of both saccadic and smooth pursuit movements (Kowler,
2011; Lovejoy, Fowler, & Krauzlis,
2009; Zhao, Gersch, Schnitzer, Dosher, & Kowler,
2012). The interaction between saccades and pursuit is of particular interest because it can be predictive. When a saccade is made to a moving target, there is a postsaccadic enhancement of eye velocity to match target velocity even against competing motion from distractors and even from the first moments after the saccade offset (Case & Ferrera,
2007; Gardner & Lisberger,
2001; Lisberger,
1998; Schoppik & Lisberger,
2006). The ability to match target velocity from saccade landing reflects that the computation of target velocity must bypass the visual latency that would be necessary if the motion were estimated from the foveal view of its motion after the saccade and rather that it must rely on information gained peripherally before the saccade. Thus, during voluntary tracking, the visual system can select peripheral target motion to predictively guide pursuit movements. However, it is unclear to what extent predictive smooth eye movements would occur when there is no task demand to track motion, for example, if a saccade were simply made to a stationary aperture that contained motion. If it did, this would mean that presaccadic attention not only enhances perception for saccade targets, but automatically engages prediction for their future locations based on motion.