Expansion of visual space after saccadic eye movements

Human subjects reported the perceived two-dimensional location of a visual target that was briefly presented after a saccade in the absence of visual references. Consistent with previous studies, immediately after horizontal saccades, there was a salient horizontal component in mislocalization in the direction opposite to the saccade. However, the horizontal component in mislocalization was not constant and was larger for targets presented further into the visual field contraversive to the saccade. For the same horizontal saccades, the vertical component in mislocalization was also obvious, and it was larger for targets located further away from the saccade trajectory. The saccadic effects resulted in an overall pattern of mislocalization that could be best described as a two-dimensional expansion of visual space. The point of expansive origin was not associated with the saccade goal, but was shifted from the saccade goal in the direction of the saccade. These results suggest that spatial information processing at the time of saccades reflects topographic interactions between neural activations from saccade execution and the visual target. The configuration of mislocalized positions of single point stimuli along a line was not comparable to the pattern of non-veridical motion perception described by Park, Lee & Lee (2001), indicating that spatial mislocalization and non-veridical motion perception after saccades are independent phenomena.