The reference frame of the tilt aftereffect

Abstract

Perceptual aftereffects provide a sensitive tool to investigate the influence of eye and head position on visual processing. There have been recent indications that the TAE is remapped around the time of a saccade to remain aligned to the adapting location in the world. Here, we investigate the spatial frame of reference of the TAE by independently manipulating retinal position, gaze orientation, and head orientation between adaptation and test. The results show that the critical factor in the TAE is the correspondence between the adaptation and test locations in a retinotopic frame of reference, whereas world- and head-centric frames of reference do not play a significant role. Our results confirm that adaptation to orientation takes place at retinotopic levels of visual processing. We suggest that the remapping process that plays a role in visual stability does not transfer feature gain information around the time of eye (or head) movements.

Visual attention and stability

“…However, if they are correct, there should be no spatiotopic after-effects, since that would indicate remapping of stimulus features. As pointed out by Cavanagh et al [96], a number of studies have indeed failed to show spatiotopic after-effects [82,[97][98][99]. However, there are also several studies that have shown clear spatiotopic after-effects [37,81,100,101] and trans-saccadic integration of object features [35,36].…”

A “blanking effect” for surface features: Transsaccadic spatial-frequency discrimination is improved by postsaccadic blanking

“…If a saccade is made after adaptation, a tiltadaptation aftereffect cannot only be found at retinotopic locations but, critically, also at spatiotopic locations (Melcher, 2005(Melcher, , 2007, indicating remapping of visual features. However, other studies (Afraz & Cavanagh, 2009;Knapen, Rolfs, Wexler, & Cavanagh, 2010;Mathôt & Theeuwes, 2013) have failed to reveal spatiotopic aftereffects, but found only aftereffects of a retinotopic nature. Thus, until visual feature remapping can be demonstrated beyond dispute, a surface-feature blanking effect provides a challenge for cancellation accounts of visual stability.…”

Developing Synaesthesia

“…In particular, it has been suggested that the TAE is driven by retinotopic as well as cortical mechanisms (Knapen et al, 2010;Mathot and Theeuwes, 2013). This possibility is controversial because a retina-based mechanism would be unable to account for differences in the TAE caused by ecstasy consumption (Brown et al, 2007;Murray et al, 2012) or by tryptophan depletion (Masini et al, 1990).…”