Spatial scale and saccade programming

The global effect in eye orienting occurs when saccades land at the 'centre of gravity' of a target stimulus configuration. Short-latency saccades are particularly prone to this effect whereas longer-latency saccades may show more influence of fine detail. Alternative explanations of these effects are considered and data are presented from an experiment in which the influence of different stimulus features on the global effect in a search task was examined. The effect shows a substantially different time course for target-distracter combinations differing in contrast polarity (black vs white) than for combinations differing in shape (circle vs square). It is concluded that the global effect cannot be explained either as a high-level strategic effect or as an effect of automatic fast processing of low-spatial-frequency information in early sensory channels. Instead it is suggested that the visual-spatial-integration characteristic of the global effect is an integral and unavoidable part of the process of selection of saccadic response.