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Updated: May 13, 2026
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Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity
Published on: March 18, 2019
Alteration of visual perception prior to microsaccades
1Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Otfried-Muller Strasse 25, Tuebingen, 72076 Germany. ziad.m.hafed@cin.uni-tuebingen.de
Neuron
|February 27, 2013
Summary
Tiny eye movements called microsaccades actively alter spatial perception before they occur. This "compression of space" impacts how we see stimuli, influencing visual attention and performance.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
- Ophthalmology
Background:
- Gaze fixation involves constant small eye movements, microsaccades.
- Microsaccades, despite their size, have significant perceptual consequences via extraretinal mechanisms.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate perceptual alterations preceding microsaccade onset.
- Determine the functional consequences of perimicrosaccadic spatial perception changes.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of spatial perception shifts relative to upcoming microsaccades.
- Investigated the mechanism of perceptual alterations, comparing it to saccade-related mechanisms.
- Examined the functional impact of these perceptual changes on visual performance.
Main Results:
- Prior to microsaccade onset, foveal stimuli appeared more eccentric, and peripheral stimuli more foveal.
- This perceptual shift, termed "compression of space," aligns with gain modulation of visual representations.
- Perimicrosaccadic alterations mediate visual performance changes akin to covert visual attention.
Conclusions:
- Microsaccades actively influence spatial perception through a "compression of space" mechanism.
- This phenomenon is linked to gain modulation of visual representations.
- Perimicrosaccadic perception changes play a functional role in visual attention and performance.
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