Influence of stimulus characteristics on the latency of saccadic inhibition

Participants read or performed visual search while the normal task display was replaced for 33 ms by a transient image at random intervals. This produced a sharp reduction in saccadic frequency (saccadic inhibition) beginning as early as 70 ms following the display change. It was found that the latency of inhibition onset was determined by the difference between the normal and transient images, with changes in high spatial frequency content of the display resulting in longer latencies than changes in low spatial frequencies. Luminance changes evoked the fastest inhibition onset regardless of the spatial frequency content of the display change.