Saccadic suppression of displacement: effects of illumination and background manipulation

In contrast to other functions which are suppressed during saccades, saccadic suppression of displacement (SSD--a decrease in sensitivity to visual displacements during saccades) has often been considered to be due to efferent processes rather than to visual masking. The aim of this study was to explicitly assess the importance of visual conditions in SSD. In two experiments, a small computer-generated target made random horizontal jumps. An infrared eye tracker was used to detect the saccade toward the new position, triggering a smaller centripetal displacement of the target. Subjects reported awareness of these intrasaccadic displacements by pressing a key. In the first experiment, the task was performed in both a well-lit environment and in darkness. In the second experiment these conditions were replicated and additional factors such as the contrast of the background and the effect of moving the target spot alone or the target plus the entire background were investigated. Unlike other forms of saccadic suppression, SSD was stronger in the dark, although subjects also had a greater bias to report detections in that condition. Other background manipulations had no effect. The effect of ambient lighting on SSD is small and subtle. Effects of other background manipulations may be overridden by the focusing of attention on a small moving target.