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SINCLAIR-THESIS-2019.Pdf COGNITIVE MECHANISMS OF TRANSSACCADIC PERCEPTION A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts In the Department of Psychology University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon By AMANDA SINCLAIR © Copyright Amanda Jane Sinclair, September 2019. All rights reserved. PERMISSION TO USE In presenting this thesis/dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis/dissertation in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis/dissertation work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this thesis/dissertation or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis/dissertation. DISCLAIMER Reference in this thesis/dissertation to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the University of Saskatchewan. The views and opinions of the author expressed herein do not state or reflect those of the University of Saskatchewan, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. Requests for permission to copy or to make other uses of materials in this thesis/dissertation in whole or part should be addressed to: Head of the Psychology Department 154 Arts, 9 Campus Drive University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5A5 Canada OR Dean College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies University of Saskatchewan 116 Thorvaldson Building, 110 Science Place Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5C9 Canada i ABSTRACT Transsaccadic perception is characterised as the ability to perceive our visual world as stable and unmoving, despite the retinal image of our visual world changing each time we make rapid eye movements (called saccades). Currently the underlying mechanisms of transsaccadic perception, specifically the mechanisms that maintain an updated internal spatial map of objects in our environment during saccades, remain unclear. Although considerable progress has been made toward a better understanding of the basic mechanisms of transsaccadic perception with stationary objects in our environment, little is known about how our brain keeps track of moving objects during a saccade, which is a real-world task we do everyday (e.g. when driving or playing sports). In this thesis I describe two studies where I investigated transsaccadic perception of moving objects. The first examines how well we can track moving objects across saccades when the saccade amplitude and eccentricity of the target vary in a purely egocentric task. The second assess the extent to which we rely on visual cues in our environment (i.e. allocentric information) during transsaccadic motion tracking. My research is among the first to explore how our brain processes and integrates moving stimuli during saccades. Additionally, it sheds further light on the cognitive mechanisms of transsaccadic perception and offers insights into our everyday visual conscious experience. Keywords: Motion perception, Eye tracking, Saccades, Transsaccadic perception, Visual perception, Spatial updating ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Foremost, I would like to express my very great appreciation to my supervisor, Dr. Steven Prime. His patient guidance, thoughtful critiques, and enthusiastic encouragement have allowed me to grow as a researcher and scholar in my academic career. I could not have imagined having a better suited advisor and mentor for this project. I would also like to offer a special thank you to my committee members, Dr. Jamie Campbell and Dr. Janeen Loehr, for their advice, wealth of knowledge, and assistance in keeping this project on schedule. A sincere thank you also goes to the University of Saskatchewan Psychology department and the Social Sciences Research Laboratories (SSRL) for offering me the resources to run this project. Support provided by the research assistants and honours students who worked in the Psychophysics and Neurocognition lab during this project is also greatly appreciated. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Barb and Lyle Sinclair, for their support and encouragement throughout my studies. As well as my husband, Jared McRorie, for whom the completion of this project would not have been possible. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS PERMISSION TO USE ................................................................................................................... i DISCLAIMER ................................................................................................................................. i ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii ACKKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 2 Anatomy of the Visual System ........................................................................................... 4 The Stable World Problem................................................................................................ 15 Theories of Transsaccadic Perception .............................................................................. 20 Transsaccadic Integration ................................................................................................. 27 Cortical Areas Governing Eye Movements and Spatial Remapping ................................ 31 Transsaccadic Motion Perception ..................................................................................... 42 The Present Study ............................................................................................................. 45 CHAPTER TWO .......................................................................................................................... 47 Effects of Saccade Size and Target Position in Transsaccadic Perception ....................... 48 Method ....................................................................................................................... 50 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................. 56 Results ........................................................................................................................ 58 Discussion .................................................................................................................. 69 iv CHAPTER THREE ...................................................................................................................... 73 Effects of Allocentric Cues in Transsaccadic Motion Perception .................................... 74 Methods ...................................................................................................................... 77 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................. 84 Results .......................................................................................................................... 8 Discussion .................................................................................................................. 97 CHAPTER FOUR ....................................................................................................................... 103 General Discussion ......................................................................................................... 104 Target Displacement ................................................................................................ 107 Saccade Amplitude and Retinal Eccentricity ........................................................... 108 Allocentric Information ............................................................................................ 112 Limitations and Future Directions .................................................................................. 115 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 118 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 120 v LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1. Saccade-target combination with saccade
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