Effect of context and efference copy on visual straight ahead

Bias in efferent commands to the eye changes the apparent straight ahead direction in an unstructured visual field, but has little effect in a normal visual environment. Naive subjects set a visible marker to appear straight ahead under monocular viewing conditions and while pressing on the viewing eye. Three background conditions were used: a naturalistic landscape photograph, a blank field, and a repeating checkerboard texture that provides strong contours but no information about visual direction. Effect of eyepress on straight-ahead judgments was small but significant with the landscape background, and larger with the blank field; the checkerboard texture yielded a bias halfway between the magnitudes of bias in the other two conditions. A visual capture theory predicts that the textured field should work like a blank one, while an oculomotor theory predicts that it should work like a natural one. Interpreted in this context, the results show the two theories to be about equally important in judging straight ahead. A second experiment with experienced observers and moving backgrounds gave the same result.