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

Atten Percept Psychophys. 2015 Jul;77(5):1500-6. doi: 10.3758/s13414-015-0926-1.

Abstract

Although saccadic eye movements occur frequently—about three or four times a second—humans are astonishingly blind to transsaccadic changes. Locational displacements of the saccade target of up to 2 deg of visual angle, and even large changes of a visual scene, can go unnoticed. For a long time, this insensitivity was ascribed to deficits in transsaccadic memory: Only a coarse, (spatially) imprecise representation would be retained across a saccade. This assumption was contradicted by Deubel's and Schneider's (Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17:259-260, 1994) striking finding that locational discrimination performance across a saccade is greatly improved by inserting a short postsaccadic blank. Surprisingly, the question of whether blanking effects occur also for other forms of transsaccadic changes (i.e., surface-feature changes) has been widely ignored. We tested this question by means of a transsaccadic change in spatial frequency. Postsaccadic blanking facilitated spatial-frequency discrimination, but to a smaller amount than the usual blanking effects obtained with locational displacements. This finding bears important implications for models of visual stability and transsaccadic memory.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Discrimination, Psychological / physiology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Judgment / physiology
  • Male
  • Memory / physiology*
  • Perceptual Masking / physiology
  • Saccades / physiology*
  • Space Perception / physiology