Mislocalization after inhibition of saccadic adaptation

Saccadic eye movements are often imprecise and result in an error between expected and actual retinal target location after the saccade. Repeated experience of this error produces changes in saccade amplitude to reduce the error and concomitant changes in apparent visual location. We investigated th...

Authors: Heins, Frauke
Lappe, Markus
Division/Institute:FB 07: Psychologie und Sportwissenschaft
Document types:Article
Media types:Text
Publication date:2022
Date of publication on miami:28.06.2023
Modification date:06.06.2024
Edition statement:[Electronic ed.]
Source:Journal of Vision 22 (2022) 8, 3, 1-23
Subjects:saccade adaptation; eye movements; visual perception; sensorimotor adaptation
DDC Subject:150: Psychologie
License:CC BY 4.0
Language:Englisch
Funding:Finanziert durch den Open-Access-Publikationsfonds der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU Münster).
Förderer: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft / Projektnummer: 469047940
Förderer: European Commission / Projektnummer: 734227
Format:PDF document
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-19998615548
Other Identifiers:DOI: 10.17879/69998661881
Permalink:https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-19998615548
Related records:
Digital documents:10.1167_jov.22.8.3.pdf

Saccadic eye movements are often imprecise and result in an error between expected and actual retinal target location after the saccade. Repeated experience of this error produces changes in saccade amplitude to reduce the error and concomitant changes in apparent visual location. We investigated the relationship between these two plastic processes in a series of experiments. Following a recent paradigm of inhibition of saccadic adaptation, in which participants are instructed to look at the initial target position and to continue to look at that position even if the target were to move again, our participants nevertheless perceived a visual probe presented near the saccade target to be shifted in direction of the target error. The location percept of the target gradually shifted and diverged over time from the executed saccade. Our findings indicate that changes in perceived location can be the same even when changes in saccade amplitude differ according to instruction and can develop even when the amplitude of the saccades executed during the adaptation procedure does not change. There are two possible explanations for this divergence between the adaptation states of saccade amplitude and perceived location. Either the intrasaccadic target step might trigger updating of the association between pre- and post-saccadic target positions, causing the localization shift, or the saccade motor command adjusts together with the perceived location at a common adaptation site, downstream from which voluntary control is exerted upon the executed eye movement only.