The fastest saccadic responses escape visual masking.

ABSTRACT: Object-substitution masking (OSM) occurs when a briefly presented target in a search array is surrounded by small dots that remain visible after the target disappears. The reduction of target visibility occurring after OSM has been suggested to result from a specific interference with reentrant visual processing while the initial feedforward processing is thought to be left intact. We tested a prediction derived from this hypothesis: the fastest responses, being triggered before the beginning of reentrant processing, should escape the OSM interference. In a saccadic choice reaction time task, which gives access to very early stages of visual processing, target visibility was reduced either by OSM, conventional backward masking, or low stimulus contrast. A general reduction of performance w

SUBMITTER: Crouzet SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3914826 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature