1995/09/01 by Susan Blackmore, Gavin Brelstaff, Kay M. Nelson +1 · 2 citations
Neuroscience · Computer Science · Psychology · #Visual perception and processing mechanisms #Neural dynamics and brain function #Visual Attention and Saliency Detection #Illusion #Afterimage #Computer vision #Artificial intelligence #Cognitive psychology #Computer science #Optical illusion #Saccade #Psychology #Eye movement #Image (mathematics)
paper · doi:10.1068/p241075
openalex publication_date 1995/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
Our construction of a stable visual world, despite the presence of saccades, is discussed. A computer-graphics method was used to explore transsaccadic memory for complex images. Images of real-life scenes were presented under four conditions: they stayed still or moved in an unpredictable direction (forcing an eye movement), while simultaneously changing or staying the same. Changes were the appearance, disappearance, or rotation of an object in the scene. Subjects detected the changes easily when the image did not move but when it moved their performance fell to chance. A grey-out period was introduced to mimic that which occurs during a saccade. This also reduced performance but not to chance levels. These results reveal the poverty of transsaccadic memory for real-life complex scenes. They are discussed with respect to Dennett's view that much less information is available in vision than our subjective impression leads us to believe. Our stable visual world may be constructed out of a brief retinal image and a very sketchy, higher-level representation along with a pop-out mechanism to redirect attention. The richness of our visual world is, to this extent, an illusion.