Transsaccadic integration is dominated by early, independent noise.

Abstract

Humans are able to integrate pre- and postsaccadic percepts of an object across saccades to maintain perceptual stability. Previous studies have used Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) to determine that integration occurs in a near-optimal manner. Here, we compared three different models to investigate the mechanism of integration in more detail: an early noise model, where noise is added to the pre- and postsaccadic signals before integration occurs; a late-noise model, where noise is added to the integrated signal after integration occurs; and a temporal summation model, where integration benefits arise from the longer transsaccadic presentation duration compared to pre- and postsaccadic presentation only. We also measured spatiotemporal aspects of integration to determine whether integration can occur for very brief stimulus durations, across two hemifields, and in spatiotopic and retinotopic coordinates. Pre-, post-, and transsaccadic performance was measured at different stimulus presentation durations, both at the saccade target and a location where the pre- and postsaccadic stimuli were presented in different hemifields across the saccade. Results showed that for both within- and between-hemifields conditions, integration could occur when pre- and postsaccadic stimuli were presented only briefly, and that the pattern of integration followed an early noise model. Whereas integration occurred when the pre- and post-saccadic stimuli were presented in the same spatiotopic coordinates, there was no integration when they were presented in the same retinotopic coordinates. This contrast suggests that transsaccadic integration is limited by early, independent, sensory noise acting separately on pre- and postsaccadic signals.