Research article summary (published 2 Nov 2002):

Motion perception of saccade-induced retinal translation.

Full Abstract

Active visual perception relies on the ability to interpret correctly retinal motion signals induced either by moving objects viewed with static eyes or by stationary objects viewed with moving eyes. A motionless environment is not normally perceived as moving during saccadic eye movements. It is commonly believed that this phenomenon involves central oculomotor signals that inhibit intrasaccadic visual motion processing. The keystone of this extraretinal theory relies on experimental reports showing that physically stationary scenes displayed only during saccades, thus producing high retinal velocities, are never perceived as moving but appear as static blurred images. We, however, provide evidence that stimuli optimized for high-speed motion detection elicit clear motion perception against saccade direction, thus making the search for extraretinal suppression superfluous. The data indicate that visual motion is the main cue used by observers to perform the task independently of other perceptual factors covarying with intrasaccadic stimulation. By using stimuli of different durations, we show that the probability of perceiving the stimulus as static, rather than moving, increases when the intrasaccadic stimulation is preceded or followed by a significant extrasaccadic stimulation. We suggest that intrasaccadic motion perception is accomplished by motion-selective magnocellular neurons through temporal integration of rapidly increasing retinal velocities. The functional mechanism that usually prevents this intrasaccadic activity from being perceived seems to rely on temporal masking effects induced by the static retinal images present before and/or after the saccade.

Author information

Author/s: Castet, Eric (E); Jeanjean, Sébastien (S); Masson, Guillaume S (GS);

Affiliation: Institut de Neurosciences Physiologiques et Cognitives, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 31 chemin Joseph Aiguier, 13402 Marseille Cedex 20, France. castet(-atsign-)lnf.cnrs-mrs.fr

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Nov; vol 99 (issue 23) : pp 15159-63

Dates: Created 2002/11/13; Completed 2003/01/15; Revised 2008/11/20;

PMID: 12417765, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Humans Models, Neurological Motion Perception - physiology Reaction Time - physiology

Reaction Time - physiology Retina - physiology Saccades - physiology Visual Perception - physiology

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