Foveal vision anticipates defining features of eye movement targets

Kroell, Lisa M.; Rolfs, Martin

doi:10.7554/elife.78106

Cited by 31 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Moreover, cutoff-SF (i.e., acuity or spatial resolution) is directly proportional to the cortical magnification factor, indicating that cutoff-SF increases from peripheral to foveal locations (Cowey & Rolls, 1974; Rovamo & Virsu, 1979; Rovamo et al, 1978; Virsu & Rovamo, 1979). Thus, our findings illustrate that presaccadic attention helps to bridge the perceptual gap between current peripheral and future foveal representations, which may facilitate a smooth transition in retinal images across saccadic eye movements (Herwig, 2015; Herwig & Schneider, 2014; Kroell & Rolfs, 2022; Li, Hanning, & Carrasco, 2021; Stewart, Valsecchi, & Schütz, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

“…Across every saccade, our visual system needs to seamlessly integrate two very dissimilar percepts: a blurry presaccadic input from the peripheral saccade target and a high-resolution post-saccadic input from the same location once the saccade target has been foveated. Presaccadic attention eases the integration of pre- and post-saccadic visual information, facilitating perceptual continuity (Herwig, 2015; Herwig & Schneider, 2014; Kroell & Rolfs, 2022; Li, Hanning, & Carrasco, 2021; Stewart, Valsecchi, & Schütz, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Presaccadic attention enhances and reshapes the Contrast Sensitivity Function differentially around the visual field

Kwak,

Zhao,

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The visual world is processed with a great degree of non-uniformity across eccentricity and around polar angle locations. Contrast sensitivity, a fundamental visual dimension constraining our vision, drops drastically from foveal to peripheral locations. It also decreases from the horizontal to the vertical meridian, and from the lower vertical to the upper vertical meridian (i.e., polar angle asymmetries). Moreover, contrast sensitivity is a function of spatial frequency, and the general relation between the two dimensions is referred to as the Contrast Sensitivity Function (CSF). To overcome constraints of the visual system throughout the visual field, we constantly make rapid saccadic eye movements to foveate on relevant objects in the visual scene. Already before saccade onset, attention shifts to the saccade target location (upcoming fovea) and enhances visual processing at that location. Thispresaccadic shift of attentiontypically benefits contrast sensitivity, but it is unknown whether and how it modulates the CSF and if this effect varies around polar angle locations. Contrast sensitivity enhancement may result from a horizontal or vertical shift of the CSF, increase in bandwidth, or any of their combinations, and the magnitude may differ around the visual field. In the current study, we investigated these possibilities by extracting key attributes of the CSF using Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling. First, we characterized how the CSF varies around polar angle. Then we compared the CSF attributes during fixation and saccade preparation (presaccadic attention). The results reveal that presaccadic attention (1) enhances contrast sensitivity across a wide range of spatial frequencies, (2) increases both the most preferred and the highest discernable spatial frequency, and (3) narrows the bandwidth. Importantly, the presaccadic enhancement in contrast sensitivity was more pronounced along the horizontal than the vertical meridian, exacerbating the polar angle asymmetries present during fixation. In conclusion, presaccadic attention bridges the gap between presaccadic peripheral and post-saccadic foveal input by rendering more of the world visible at the saccade target, and more so at the horizontal than the vertical meridian.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Presaccadic attention enhances and reshapes the Contrast Sensitivity Function differentially around the visual field

Kwak,

Zhao,

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…Second, presaccadic attention shifts enhance visual performance at the intended target location independent of saccade accuracy on a given trial (Deubel & Schneider, 1996). Similarly, the prediction of the target stimulus in the fovea is unrelated to the specific saccade metrics (Kroell & Rolfs, 2022). In contrast to these findings, we observed an association between saccadic error and memory performance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Saccadic selection in visual working memory is robust across the visual field and linked to saccade metrics: Evidence from nine experiments and more than 100,000 trials.

Ohl,

Kroell,

Rolfs

2024

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Visual working memory and actions are closely intertwined. Memory can guide our actions, but actions also impact what we remember. Even during memory maintenance, actions such as saccadic eye movements select content in visual working memory, resulting in better memory at locations that are congruent with the action goal as compared to incongruent locations. Here, we further substantiate the claim that saccadic eye movements are fundamentally linked to visual working memory by analyzing a large data set (.100k trials) of nine experiments (eight of them previously published). Using Bayesian hierarchical models, we demonstrate robust saccadic selection across the full range of probed saccade directions, manifesting as better memory performance at the saccade goal irrespective of its location in the visual field. By inspecting individual differences in saccadic selection, we show that saccadic selection was highly prevalent in the population. Moreover, both saccade metrics and visual working memory performance varied considerably across the visual field. Crucially, however, both idiosyncratic and systematic visual field anisotropies were not correlated between visual working memory and the oculomotor system, suggesting that they resulted from different sources (e.g., rely on separate spatial maps). In stark contrast, trial-by-trial variations in saccade metrics were strongly associated with memory performance: At any given location, shorter saccade latencies and more accurate saccades were associated with better memory performance, undergirding a robust link between action selection and visual memory. Public Significance StatementWhen we try to memorize what we have just seen, the places we look at will determine what we will remember and what we will forget: whatever had been visible at the goal of your eye movement will most likely be stored in memory. Here, we demonstrate that this selection mechanism in visual memory is highly prevalent in healthy human observers and robust across eye movement directions. Moreover, fast and accurate saccades as opposed to slow inaccurate ones are associated with an improved ability to remember a visual stimulus on a single trial, underscoring the immediate and intertwined relationship between actions and visual memory.

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“…12,13 ), suggest that sensory tuning in SC neuronal movement commands may be more relevant for the SC's ascending pathways to the cortex 32,33 than for its descending projections to the oculomotor control network. While such ascending pathways have historically been suggested to provide only the vector information of the saccade, to spatially remap retinotopic visual representations 31,32,34 , sensory tuning in SC motor bursts could allow the same pathways to additionally relay a sensory prediction signal of the peripheral saccade target appearance; such a peripheral preview (even if it is coarser than foveal visual analysis) could be perceptually useful, for example, in predicting the foveal visual sensory consequences of saccades 35 , or in bridging trans-saccadic perception [36][37][38] . It could also pre-saccadically enhance perception of the saccade target [22][23][24][25] and aid in visual search 39 .…”

Section: Link To Peri-saccadic Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensory tuning in neuronal movement commands

Denninger¹,

Bogadhi

Baumann³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Movement control is critical for successful interaction with our environment. However, movement does not occur in complete isolation of sensation, and this is particularly true of eye movements. Here we show that the neuronal eye movement commands emitted by the superior colliculus, a structure classically associated with oculomotor control, encompass a robust visual sensory representation of eye movement targets. Thus, similar saccades towards different images are associated with different saccade-related 'motor' bursts. Such sensory tuning in superior colliculus saccade motor commands appeared for all image manipulations that we tested, from simple visual features to real-life object images, and it was also strongest in the most motor neurons in the deeper collicular layers. Visual-feature discrimination performance in the motor commands was also stronger than in visual responses. Comparing superior colliculus motor command feature discrimination performance to that in the primary visual cortex during steady gaze fixation revealed that collicular motor bursts possess a reliable peri-saccadic sensory representation of the peripheral saccade target's visual appearance, exactly when retinal input is most uncertain. Consistent with this, we found that peri-saccadic perception is altered as a function of saccade target visual features. Therefore, superior colliculus neuronal movement commands likely serve a fundamentally sensory function.

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Foveal vision anticipates defining features of eye movement targets

Cited by 31 publications

References 69 publications

Presaccadic attention enhances and reshapes the Contrast Sensitivity Function differentially around the visual field

Presaccadic attention enhances and reshapes the Contrast Sensitivity Function differentially around the visual field

Saccadic selection in visual working memory is robust across the visual field and linked to saccade metrics: Evidence from nine experiments and more than 100,000 trials.

Sensory tuning in neuronal movement commands

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