Saccade Adaptation and Visual Uncertainty

David Souto, Karl R. Gegenfurtner, Alexander C. Schütz

Visual uncertainty may affect saccade adaptation in two complementary ways. First, an ideal adaptor should take into account the reliability of visual information for determining the amount of correction, predicting that increasing visual uncertainty should decrease adaptation rates. We tested this by comparing observers' direction discrimination and adaptation rates in an intra-saccadic-step paradigm. Second, clearly visible target steps may generate a slower adaptation rate since the error can be attributed to an external cause, instead of an internal change in the visuo-motor mapping that needs to be compensated. We tested this prediction by measuring saccade adaptation to different step sizes. Most remarkably, we found little correlation between estimates of visual uncertainty and adaptation rates and no slower adaptation rates with more visible step sizes. Additionally, we show that for low contrast targets backward steps are perceived as stationary after the saccade, but that adaptation rates are independent of contrast. We suggest that the saccadic system uses different position signals for adapting dysmetric saccades and for generating a trans-saccadic stable visual percept, explaining that saccade adaptation is found to be independent of visual uncertainty.