Visual stability across saccades while viewing complex pictures.

As people examine their world, the proximal stimulus changes position on their retinae with every saccade, but they perceive the world as being stable. This phenomenon of visual stability was explored by making changes in natural, full-color pictures during selected saccades as observers examined them in preparation for a recognition test. In Experiment 1, the pictures were displaced up, down, left, or right by 0.3, 0.4, or 1.2 degrees. In Experiment 2, the pictures were expanded or contracted by 10% or 20%. As a secondary task, subjects pressed a button when a change was detected. Three results from previous studies with simpler stimuli did not generalize. Evidence suggests that subjects' detection of image changes primarily involves the use of local information in the region of the eyes' landing position. A saccade target theory of visual stability is proposed.