THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SACCADIC ADAPTATION AND PERCEPTION OF THE SACCADE TARGET OBJECT

Saccades are the quick, ballistic eye movements that we make multiple times each second. Although their metrics, including amplitude, cannot be changed after they are initiated, these metrics can be altered through various methods. Saccadic adaptation is an effect resulting from one such alteration, namely, the repeated displacement of the saccade target during the saccade itself. During this process, the observer will typically make corrective saccades, but the initial saccade will gradually approach the target’s final location, known as the adapted location. Previous studies have suggested that when the saccade landing point shifts, so does the pre-saccadic shift of attention. The pre-saccadic shift of attention is a well-documented process occurring just before saccade initiation, by which the visual system attends to the upcoming saccade target, and previous work has demonstrated that this shift can be altered through the induction of saccadic adaptation. In the current study, we investigated the effect of forward saccadic adaptation on color perception, hypothesizing that after saccadic adaptation has been established, color report will be biased toward the color displayed at the adapted location. We did not find this to be the case in our design. This result could likely be attributed to several weaknesses in the forward adaptation effect.