Object identity changes and the target blanking effect J MacInnes, A Hunt |
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Psychology, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom
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| Visual input is a series of stable fixations separated by saccades, but perception is continuous. It has been proposed that visual stability is maintained, in part, by a series of presaccadic predictions followed by postsaccadic confirmations (or disconfirmations). Indeed, detection of trans-saccadic object displacements can be improved by introducing temporal disruptions to the object. This target blanking effect could be caused by a failure in the prediction of object location and/or identity across a saccade that facilitates comparison of pre- and post-saccadic location information. If so, successful detection of object displacements might be a useful indicator of a mismatch in the predicted vs. actual post-saccadic perception. We explore this idea using images of real-world objects and a variety of changes in object features and identity. We replicate the target blanking effect and show that small changes in object features, such as colour, do not influence displacement detection. However, changes from one object type to another interferes with displacement discrimination and blocks the target blanking effect, contrary to the hypothesis that the latter effect is driven by discontinuity in object perception. The results suggest temporal gaps and trans-saccadic object identity changes influence visual stability in different ways. |
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