Mislocalisation of Chromatic and Achromatic Stimuli during Saccadic Eye Movements

Abstract

It is well known that a brief flash of a small stationary target presented during saccades appears to be shifted from the actual position. The perceptual location of a visual target should be determined by the retinal information and the eye position signal. This mislocalisation seems to indicate that the change of the eye position signal is more sluggish than the actual eye movements. Delay of transmission of the retinal information may be a factor of mislocalisation. Here, we measured the perceptual location of chromatic stimuli which had different temporal characteristics from achromatic stimuli. The chromatic stimulus was a small red spot which replaced the green field for 10 ms. The green field subtended 5 deg × 24 deg and its luminance was 78.6 cd m−2. The luminance of the chromatic stimulus was adjusted to be the same as the green field by the minimum flicker method. The luminance of the achromatic stimulus was 234 cd m−2. Our results show that the chromatic and the achromatic stimuli presented at the beginning of saccades are mislocalised in the same direction as the saccades. We also found that the mislocalisation of the chromatic stimulus began slightly earlier than the achromatic stimulus. Also the chromatic stimulus presented during saccades was mislocalised in the opposite direction to the saccades whereas the achromatic stimulus was localised approximately at the actual position. These results suggest that the chromatic response is transmitted more slowly before saccades but faster during saccades than the achromatic response.