Where are you looking? Pseudogaze in afterimages

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Visual Perception
• Ophthalmology

Background:

• The direction of gaze is typically assumed to align with the fovea.
• Visual stability during fixation is crucial despite natural eye movements like drifts and microsaccades.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if the subjective experience of gaze direction can be decoupled from foveal fixation.
• To explore the flexibility of gaze perception in relation to attended peripheral locations.

Main Methods:

• Participants viewed a diamond-shaped afterimage and were instructed to direct their gaze to specific corners.
• Eye-tracking technology recorded eye movements during subjective fixation tasks.
• Gaze shifts were analyzed for perceived direction versus actual eye movement patterns.

Main Results:

• Observers could subjectively shift gaze to nonfoveal points in an afterimage.
• Gaze perception was more successful at 1.75° eccentricity than at 3.5°.
• Eye-tracking revealed systematic drifts during subjective peripheral fixations.
• Reported saccade directions did not always match actual eye movement trajectories.

Conclusions:

• The perceived direction of gaze can be flexibly assigned to attended points near the fovea.
• This flexible assignment may contribute to the stability of the visual world during fixation.
• The findings challenge the strict assumption of foveal-central gaze assignment.