A novel two-step paradigm was used to investigate the parallel programming of consecutive, stimulus-elicited ('reflexive') and endogenous ('voluntary') saccades. The mean latency of voluntary saccades, made following the first reflexive saccades in two-step conditions, was significantly reduced compared to that of voluntary saccades made in the single-step control trials. The latency of the fir...

Saccades modulate the relationship between visual motion and smooth eye movement. Before a saccade, pursuit eye movements reflect a vector average of motion across the visual field. After a saccade, pursuit primarily reflects the motion of the target closest to the endpoint of the saccade. We tested the hypothesis that the saccade produces a spatial weighting of motion around the endpoint of th...

Sequences of saccades have been shown to be prepared concurrently however it remains unclear exactly what aspects of those saccades are programmed in parallel. To examine this participants were asked to make one or two target-driven saccades: a reflexive saccade; a voluntary saccade; a reflexive then a voluntary saccade; or vice versa. During the first response the position of a second target w...

Saccade adaptation is a mechanism that adjusts saccade landing positions if they systematically fail to reach their intended target. In the laboratory, saccades can be shortened or lengthened if the saccade target is displaced during execution of the saccade. In this study, saccades were performed from different positions to an adapted saccade target to dissociate adaptation to a spatiotopic po...

In the temporal vicinity of a saccade onset, visual stability is transiently disrupted and briefly flashed visual stimuli undergo a systematic perceptual mislocalization. Specifically, when a stimulus is flashed around saccade onset, localization judgments are grossly biased toward the saccade endpoint. This peri-saccadic compression increases with saccade amplitude. Previous studies of peri-sa...

The oculomotor system maintains saccade accuracy by adjusting saccades that are consistently inaccurate. Four experiments were performed to determine the relative contribution of background and target postsaccadic displacement. Unlike typical saccade adaptation experiments, we used natural image scenes and masked target and background displacements during the saccade to exclude motion signals f...

According to the pre-motor theory of attention, attention is shifted to a saccade's landing position before the saccade is executed. Such pre-saccadic attention shifts are usually studied in psychophysical dual-task conditions, with a target-discrimination task before saccade onset. Here, we present a novel approach to investigate pre-saccadic attention shifts with the help of event-related pot...

The perceptual stability of visual space becomes fragile in the wake of a saccadic eye movement. Objects flashed shortly before a saccade are mislocalized towards the saccade target. Traditional accounts for this effect have associated the mislocalizations with a sluggishness of the efference copy signal, which is important in space perception across eye movements. Recent theories of space perc...

In a series of 5 experiments, the allocation of attention prior to the execution of saccade sequences was examined by using a dual-task paradigm. In the primary task, participants were required to execute a sequence of 2 endogenous saccades. The secondary task was a forced-choice letter identification task. During the programming of the saccade sequences, letters were briefly presented at the s...