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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
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Perceptual saccadic suppression starts in the retina
Saad Idrees1, Matthias P Baumann1,2, Felix Franke3
1Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Tübingen University, 72076, Tübingen, Germany.
Nature Communications
|April 26, 2020
Summary
Saccadic suppression, the impairment of visual sensitivity during eye movements, is primarily caused by visual mechanisms, not motor commands. These visual mechanisms, originating in the retina, explain the phenomenon without needing explicit motor-based suppression signals.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
- Ophthalmology
Background:
- Saccadic suppression is a well-known perceptual phenomenon where visual sensitivity is reduced during rapid eye movements.
- This suppression is traditionally attributed to active inhibitory signals originating from eye movement commands.
- The precise neural underpinnings and locus of saccadic suppression remain a subject of investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of visual-only mechanisms in saccadic suppression.
- To determine if retinal mechanisms can fully account for the perceptual characteristics of saccadic suppression.
- To explore the relationship between neural and perceptual suppression around saccades.
Main Methods:
- Perceptual detectability of brief visual stimuli was measured during saccades.
- Investigated visual-only mechanisms activated by saccade-induced retinal image shifts.
- Compared the timing and duration of neural suppression with perceptual suppression.
Main Results:
- Visual-only mechanisms, triggered by retinal image shifts during saccades, fully explain observed saccadic suppression.
- These mechanisms are present at the earliest stages of visual processing, including the retina.
- Retinal neural suppression extends beyond the duration of perceptual suppression, suggesting a modulatory role for extra-retinal signals.
Conclusions:
- Saccadic suppression is predominantly mediated by visual processing mechanisms within the retina.
- Explicit motor-based suppression commands are not necessary to explain saccadic suppression.
- Extra-retinal signals may serve to shorten, rather than initiate, saccadic suppression.
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