Consequences of the Oculomotor Cycle for the Dynamics of Perception

Boi, Marco; Poletti, Martina; Victor, Jonathan D.; Rucci, Michele

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2017.03.034

Cited by 58 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…In contrast to studies of saccadic suppression, however, we presented stimuli at medium to high contrasts rather than at threshold. Indeed, recent evidence shows that saccades reformat the visual input signal to emphasize post-saccadic low-SF information (Boi et al, 2017). Thus, intra-saccadic visual signals are not eliminated from visual processing and could constitute a valuable source for trans-saccadic object identification.…”

Section: Distinct Motion Streaks Are Associated With High Task Performentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, stimuli undergoing saccadic suppression can still influence post-saccadic judgments, even if the observer is unaware of them (Watson & Krekelberg, 2009). Recently, the hypothesis has been proposed that effectively modulating the spatiotemporal power distribution in the retinal image saccades enhances low spatial frequencies (SFs) and thus facilitates a coarse-to-fine strategy of post-saccadic visual processing (Boi, Poletti, Victor, & Rucci, 2017;Rucci, Ahissar, & Burr, 2018). Indeed, Boi et al (2017) showed that contrast sensitivity to post-saccadic low SF (but not high SF) information is greater if the stimulus has its onset during the saccade than if the same stimulus is presented with a contrast ramp during fixation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intra-saccadic motion streaks as cues to linking object locations across saccades

Schweitzer

Rolfs

2020

Journal of Vision

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When visual objects shift rapidly across the retina, they produce motion blur. Intra-saccadic visual signals, caused incessantly by our own saccades, are thought to be eliminated at early stages of visual processing. Here we investigate whether they are still available to the visual system and could-in principle-be used as cues for localizing objects as they change locations on the retina. Using a high-speed projection system, we developed a trans-saccadic identification task in which brief but continuous intra-saccadic object motion was key to successful performance. Observers made a saccade to a target stimulus that moved rapidly either up or down, strictly during the eye movement. Just as the target reached its final position, an identical distractor stimulus appeared on the opposite side, resulting in a display of two identical stimuli upon saccade landing. Observers had to identify the original target using the only available clue: the target's intra-saccadic movement. In an additional replay condition, we presented the observers' own intra-saccadic retinal stimulus trajectories during fixation. Compared to the replay condition, task performance was impaired during saccades but recovered fully when a post-saccadic blank was introduced. Reverse regression analyses and confirmatory experiments showed that performance increased markedly when targets had long movement durations, low spatial frequencies, and orientations parallel to their retinal trajectory-features that promote intra-saccadic motion streaks. Although the potential functional role of intra-saccadic visual signals is still unclear, our results suggest that they could provide cues to tracking objects that rapidly change locations across saccades.

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Section: Distinct Motion Streaks Are Associated With High Task Performentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intra-saccadic motion streaks as cues to linking object locations across saccades

Schweitzer

Rolfs

2020

Journal of Vision

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“…First, nonlinear processing in the retina can contribute more to decorrelating retinal ganglion cell (RGC) responses to natural scenes than the RF surround [10] (see also [11,12]). Second, human fixational eye movements can remove spatial correlations in natural inputs before any neural processing takes place [13,14,15,16]. These findings suggest a need to re-examine the role of the surround, especially as it relates to the encoding of natural visual stimuli.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Receptive field center-surround interactions mediate context-dependent spatial contrast encoding in the retina

Turner

Schwartz²

2018

Preprint

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SummaryAlmost every neuron in the early visual system has some form of an antagonistic receptive field surround. But the function of the surround is poorly understood, especially under naturalistic stimulus conditions. Anatomical and functional characterization of the surround of retinal ganglion cells suggests that surround signals combine with the excitatory feedforward pathway upstream of an important synaptic nonlinearity between bipolar cells and postsynaptic ganglion cells. This circuit architecture suggests at least two unexplored consequences for receptive field structure. First, center and surround inputs should interact nonlinearly, even prior to the summation across visual space that forms the full receptive field center. Second, inputs to the surround may alter the sensitivity of the center to spatial contrast in a scene. We test these hypotheses using both synthetic and naturalistic visual stimuli, and find that the statistics of natural scenes promote these nonlinear interactions. This work shows that, unexpectedly, the surround modulates spatial contrast encoding based on visual context.

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“…It has long been argued that eye movements could be beneficial, rather than detrimental, to visual acuity [22][23][24][25] . With stimuli far from the limits of spatial resolution, both eye drifts 26,27 and microsaccades 28 have been found to facilitate pattern vision. However, experimental evidence on acuity has been contradictory.…”

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confidence: 99%

Finely tuned eye movements enhance visual acuity

2020

Self Cite

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High visual acuity is essential for many tasks, from recognizing distant friends to driving a car. While much is known about how the eye's optics and anatomy contribute to spatial resolution, possible influences from eye movements are rarely considered. Yet humans incessantly move their eyes, and it has long been suggested that oculomotor activity enhances fine pattern vision. Here we examine the role of eye movements in the most common assessment of visual acuity, the Snellen eye chart. By precisely localizing gaze and actively controlling retinal stimulation, we show that fixational behavior improves acuity by more than 0.15 logMAR, at least 2 lines of the Snellen chart. This improvement is achieved by adapting both microsaccades and ocular drifts to precisely position the image on the retina and adjust its motion. These findings show that humans finely tune their fixational eye movements so that they greatly contribute to normal visual acuity.

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Consequences of the Oculomotor Cycle for the Dynamics of Perception

Cited by 58 publications

References 45 publications

Intra-saccadic motion streaks as cues to linking object locations across saccades

Intra-saccadic motion streaks as cues to linking object locations across saccades

Receptive field center-surround interactions mediate context-dependent spatial contrast encoding in the retina

Finely tuned eye movements enhance visual acuity

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