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Published on: August 22, 2025
Stability of the visual world during eye drift.
Martina Poletti1, Chiara Listorti, Michele Rucci
1Department of Psychology, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
Summary
The brain uses the visual stimulus on the retina, not eye movement signals, to maintain visual stability during natural eye drift. This finding explains how we perceive a stable world despite constant, tiny eye movements.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Vision Science
- Perception
Background:
- Microscopic eye movements (fixational eye movements) normally keep retinal images in motion.
- Perceptual cancellation of these movements could use motor/proprioceptive information or infer movements from the visual stimulus.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the mechanisms of visual stability during ocular drift.
- To determine whether the visual system uses retinal stimulus or extraretinal information to compensate for eye movements.
Main Methods:
- Used a gaze-contingent display system to decouple eye movements from visual input changes.
- Studied human observers fixating on stationary scenes.
Main Results:
- The visual system discards motion signals from ocular drift based on the spatiotemporal stimulus on the retina.
- Extraretinal information is not the primary mechanism for discarding drift-induced motion signals.
Conclusions:
- Visual stability during ocular drift relies on processing the retinal image itself.
- Failure to visually determine eye drift may contribute to motion illusions like autokinesis.
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