Abstract
Saccadic eye movements pose many challenges for stable and continuous vision, such as how information from successive fixations is amalgamated into a single precept. Here we show in humans that motion signals are temporally integrated across separate fixations, but only when the motion stimulus falls either on the same retinal region (retinotopic integration) or on different retinal positions that correspond to the same external spatial coordinates (spatiotopic integration). We used individual motion signals that were below detection threshold, implicating spatiotopic trans-saccadic integration in relatively early stages of visual processing such as the middle temporal area (MT) or V5 of visual cortex. The trans-saccadic buildup of important congruent visual information while irrelevant non-congruent information fades could provide a simple and robust strategy to stabilize perception during eye movements.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by Human Frontiers Science Program and Miur Cofin 2001. Special thanks to D. Burr for helpful discussion and criticisms of the manuscript.
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Melcher, D., Morrone, M. Spatiotopic temporal integration of visual motion across saccadic eye movements. Nat Neurosci 6, 877–881 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1098
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1098
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