The saccade target is prioritized for visual stability in naturalistic scenes

The present study investigated the mechanisms of visual stability using naturalistic scene images. In two experiments, we asked whether the visual system relies on spatial location of the saccade target, as previously found with simple dot stimuli, or relational positions of the objects in the scene during visual stability decisions. Using a modified version of the saccadic suppression of displacement task, we manipulated the information that is displaced in the scene as well as visual stability using intrasaccadic target blanking paradigm. There were four displacement conditions: saccade target, saccade source (Experiment 2 only), whole scene, and background. We also included a no-displacement control condition where everything remained stationary. Participants reported whether they detected any movement. The results showed that spatial displacements that occur in the saccade target object were more easily detected than any other displacements in the scene. Further, disrupting visual stability with blanking only improved displacement detection for the saccade target and saccade source objects, suggesting that saccade target and saccade source objects are both consulted in the establishment of visual stability, most likely due to both receiving selective attention before saccade execution. The present study is the first to show that the visual system uses similar visual stability mechanisms for simple dot stimuli and more naturalistic stimuli.