Attention updates the perceived position of moving objects

Abstract

The information used by conscious perception may be somewhat different from that which drives certain actions. In support of this notion, recent studies reported that although internal grating motion can accumulate over seconds into a large illusory position shift, this position shift is not reflected in saccade targeting (action). Another possibility however is that rather than saccades and other actions having privileged access to the correct position, the attention shift thought to precede saccades resets the accumulated position shift to zero. Here we found that the accumulation of illusory position shift can be reset by transients near the moving object and also by the observer pressing a button at the time the object is perceived to reach a particular position. This creates a striking impression of the object jumping back to near its actual position. These results suggest that both stimulus-driven attention and attention associated with control of action may update the perceived position of moving objects and mediate the previously reported dissociation between conscious perception and saccades.