Predictive remapping of visual features beyond saccadic targets

Abstract

Visual stability is thought to be mediated by predictive remapping of the relevant object information from its current, presaccadic location to its future, postsaccadic location on the retina. However, it is heavily debated whether and what feature information is predictively remapped during the presaccadic interval. Here we examined the spatial and featural properties of predictive remapping in a set of three psychophysical studies. We made use of an orientation-adaptation paradigm, in which we induced a tilt aftereffect by prolonged exposure to an oriented adaptor stimulus. Following this adaptation phase, a test stimulus was presented shortly before saccade onset. We found strong evidence for predictive remapping of the features of this test stimulus presented shortly before saccade onset, evidenced by a large tilt aftereffect elicited when the adaptor was positioned at the postsaccadic retinal location of the test stimulus. Conversely, the adaptation state itself, caused by the exposure to the adaptor stimulus, was not predictively remapped. Furthermore, we establish that predictive remapping also occurs for stimuli that are not saccade targets, pointing toward a forward remapping process operating across the whole visual field. Together, our findings suggest that predictive feature remapping of object information plays an important role in mediating visual stability.

Foveal vision anticipates defining features of eye movement targets

“…It is conceivable that the fovea as the region of highest acuity is assigned a permanent attention pointer. In principle, however, this mechanism could operate across the visual field and may underlie previous findings that demonstrate an interaction of feature information between peripheral locations [for motion discrimination ( Szinte et al, 2016 ), crowding ( Harrison et al, 2013 ), and adaptation ( He et al, 2018 ; Biber and Ilg, 2011 ; Melcher, 2007 )].…”

Transsaccadic integration benefits are not limited to the saccade target

“…There is divergent evidence on the spatial profile of remapping: remapping in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) can occur across the whole visual field and is not specific to the location of an impending eye movement (Mirpour and Bisley 2012), whereas receptive fields from frontal eye field neurons converge toward the saccade target (Zirnsak and Moore 2014; Zirnsak et al 2014), in contrast to the shift parallel to the saccade vector in forward remapping. The pattern of broader forward remapping has also been shown to occur for features at locations other than the saccade target (He et al 2018), supporting the idea that both feature and location information can be updated in a more general manner across the visual field. Indeed, there is ample behavioral evidence that features can be remapped (Harrison et al 2013; He et al 2017; Melcher 2007, 2008; Wolfe and Whitney 2015).…”

Foveal vision predictively sensitizes to defining features of eye movement targets

“…It is conceivable that the fovea as the region of highest acuity is assigned a permanent attention pointer. In principle, however, this mechanism could operate across the visual field and may underlie previous findings that demonstrate an interaction of feature information between peripheral locations (for motion discrimination [31] , crowding [32] and adaptation [33][34][35] ).…”