Abstract
We are constantly sampling our environment by moving our eyes, but our subjective experience of the world is stable and constant. One undesirable consequence of eye movements is that stimulus displacement during or shortly after a saccade often goes unnoticed, a phenomenon called the saccadic suppression of displacement. Although we fail to notice such displacements, our oculomotor system computes the post-saccadic prediction errors and adequately adjusts the gaze and future saccadic execution, a phenomenon known as saccadic adaptation. In the present study, we aimed to find a brain signature of the trans-saccadic prediction error that informs the motor system but not explicit perception. We asked human participants to report whether a visual target was displaced during a saccade towards it while recording electroencephalography (EEG). Using multivariate pattern analysis, we were able to differentiate displacements from no displacements, even when participants failed to report the displacement. In other words, we found that trans-saccadic prediction error is represented in the EEG signal 100 ms after the displacement presentation, mainly in occipital and parieto-occipital regions, even in the absence of explicit perception of the displacement.
Significance Statement Stability in vision occurs even while performing saccades. One suggested mechanism for this counterintuitive visual phenomenon is that external displacement is suppressed during the retinal remapping caused by a saccade. Here, we shed light on the mechanisms of trans-saccadic stability by showing that displacement information is not entirely suppressed and specifically present in the early stages of visual processing. Such a signal is relevant and computed for oculomotor adjustment despite being neglected for error perception.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
↵* Co-senior authors
Conflict of interest statement The authors declare no competing financial interests.
