The role of the attention focus in the visual information processing underlying saccadic adaptation

Three experiments were performed to determine how an error signal for drivi ng saccadic adaptation is derived from visual information processing. The f irst experiment demonstrated that an intrasaccadic displacement of a visual background does not influence saccadic adaptation when a small foveal targ et is used. The second experiment showed that when a different type of targ et, a 4.8 deg annulus, is used an intrasaccadic background shift influences the adaptive process. The third experiment showed that the size of the sac cade target determines the size of the attention focus around the time of a saccade. These findings suggest that the attention focus selects the visua l information used for a trans-saccadic comparison in order to generate the error signal. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.