We see the future before we move our eyes!

Each time we move our eyes, the image of objects in the world shifts its position on the retina, yet our perception is remarkably stable. Predictive remapping is thought to be an underlying neural mechanism to this visual stability. In our recent studies, we investigated the spatial and featural properties of predictive remapping.

In a set of three psychophysical studies, after a long exposure phase of an adaptor, we presented a test stimulus at different critical locations just before the onset of an eye movement. We found strong evidence for predictive remapping of feature information that is presented shortly before saccade onset but no remapping of adaptation by the adaptor. This pre-saccadic remapping also occurred for stimuli that were not saccade targets, pointing toward a forward remapping process operating across the whole visual field.

Together, our findings suggest that predictive feature remapping of object information plays an important role in mediating visual stability.