SUPPRESSION OF MOTION DURING SACCADES - COMMENTARY

Saccadic eye movements create (at least) two related but distinct prob lems for the visual system: they cause rapid image motion and a displa cement of the retinal image. Although it is often assumed that the mot ion is too fast to be resolved, this is certainly not the case for low -spatial-frequency images. Recent experiments have suggested that the reason we are unaware of the motion during saccades is because motion channels are selectively suppressed, possibly by suppression of the ma gno-cellular (but not the parvocellular) pathway. This suppression may explain why there is no sensation of motion during saccades, but it l eaves open the problem of perceiving a stable world despite continual image displacements.