Abstract
This study examines the consequences of saccadic eye movements for the internal representation of visual objects. A saccade shifts the image of a stable visual object from one part of the retina to another. We show that visual representations are built up over these different views of the same object, by combining information obtained before and after each saccade. The weights given to presaccadic and postsaccadic information are determined by the relative reliability of each input. This provides evidence that the visual system combines inputs over time in a statistically optimal way.
Highlights
Each saccade radically alters the pattern of input to the retina
When a saccade was made to location fix2, but the colored items were removed during the saccade, we observed a shift in representational precision toward the saccade target region (Fig. 1f, dark blue symbols; Experiment 1A, PRE-ONLY condition), such that responses were less variable for the item closest to the saccade target than for the intermediate item, even though none of the items were visible at the termination of the saccade (fix1 vs int, t(13) ϭ 3.76, p ϭ 0.002; fix1 vs fix2, t(13) ϭ 0.82, p ϭ 0.43, int vs fix2, t(13) ϭ 2.79, p ϭ 0.015)
In this study we investigated how the internal representation of a visual scene develops across eye movements
Summary
Each saccade radically alters the pattern of input to the retina. Details of the presaccadic input are maintained within the limited store of visual working memory (Irwin, 1991, 1992; Rensink, 2000; Bays and Husain, 2008; Hollingworth et al, 2008; Ma et al, 2014), permitting an imperfect comparison that may fail to detectReceived March 17, 2015; revised May 28, 2015; accepted June 1, 2015. Each saccade radically alters the pattern of input to the retina. Details of the presaccadic input are maintained within the limited store of visual working memory (Irwin, 1991, 1992; Rensink, 2000; Bays and Husain, 2008; Hollingworth et al, 2008; Ma et al, 2014), permitting an imperfect comparison that may fail to detect. Received March 17, 2015; revised May 28, 2015; accepted June 1, 2015. The authors declare no competing financial interests. This article is freely available online through the J Neurosci Author Open Choice option. Correspondence should be addressed to Leonie Oostwoud Wijdenes, UCL Institute of Neurology, Box 146 Queen
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