TY - JOUR
T1 - Presaccadic preview shapes postsaccadic processing more where perception is poor
AU - Liu, Xiaoyi
AU - Melcher, David
AU - Carrasco, Marisa
AU - Hanning, Nina M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2024 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.
PY - 2024/9/10
Y1 - 2024/9/10
N2 - The presaccadic preview of a peripheral target enhances the efficiency of its postsaccadic processing, termed the extrafoveal preview effect. Peripheral visual performance—and thus the quality of the preview—varies around the visual field, even at isoeccentric locations: It is better along the horizontal than vertical meridian and along the lower than upper vertical meridian. To investigate whether these polar angle asymmetries influence the preview effect, we asked human participants to preview four tilted gratings at the cardinals, until a central cue indicated which one to saccade to. During the saccade, the target orientation either remained or slightly changed (valid/invalid preview). After saccade landing, participants discriminated the orientation of the (briefly presented) second grating. Stimulus contrast was titrated with adaptive staircases to assess visual performance. Expectedly, valid previews increased participants’ postsaccadic contrast sensitivity. This preview benefit, however, was inversely related to polar angle perceptual asymmetries; largest at the upper, and smallest at the horizontal meridian. This finding reveals that the visual system compensates for peripheral asymmetries when integrating information across saccades, by selectively assigning higher weights to the less-well perceived preview information. Our study supports the recent line of evidence showing that perceptual dynamics around saccades vary with eye movement direction.
AB - The presaccadic preview of a peripheral target enhances the efficiency of its postsaccadic processing, termed the extrafoveal preview effect. Peripheral visual performance—and thus the quality of the preview—varies around the visual field, even at isoeccentric locations: It is better along the horizontal than vertical meridian and along the lower than upper vertical meridian. To investigate whether these polar angle asymmetries influence the preview effect, we asked human participants to preview four tilted gratings at the cardinals, until a central cue indicated which one to saccade to. During the saccade, the target orientation either remained or slightly changed (valid/invalid preview). After saccade landing, participants discriminated the orientation of the (briefly presented) second grating. Stimulus contrast was titrated with adaptive staircases to assess visual performance. Expectedly, valid previews increased participants’ postsaccadic contrast sensitivity. This preview benefit, however, was inversely related to polar angle perceptual asymmetries; largest at the upper, and smallest at the horizontal meridian. This finding reveals that the visual system compensates for peripheral asymmetries when integrating information across saccades, by selectively assigning higher weights to the less-well perceived preview information. Our study supports the recent line of evidence showing that perceptual dynamics around saccades vary with eye movement direction.
KW - eye movement programming
KW - peripheral vision
KW - transsaccadic perception
KW - visual continuity
KW - visual field asymmetries
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85203420311&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85203420311&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2411293121
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2411293121
M3 - Article
C2 - 39236235
AN - SCOPUS:85203420311
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 121
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 37
M1 - e2411293121
ER -