ROLE OF SPATIAL LOCATION IN INTEGRATION OF PICTORIAL INFORMATION ACROSS SACCADES

Identification of a fixated object in a visual display is facilitated by integrating information from a preview of that object in the periphery with information extracted on the subsequent foveal fixation (Pollatsek, Rayner, & Collins, 1984). These experiments investigated the extent to which this integration is dependent on the spatial location of the information remaining constant. Two preview objects were presented in the periphery; Ss fixated that region and named a single target object that appeared in the same spatial location in which one of the two preview objects had been presented. Of primary interest was the facilitative effect when a preview object was identical to the target object as a function of whether they were in the same spatial location. The major finding was that although there was a small effect of switching, there was still a substantial preview benefit even when the location of the identical object switched. In addition, the switching effect did not interact with the level of identity between the preview and target. There was also a preview benefit in conditions in which there were no eye movements and the preview and target objects were at least 5° apart. Thus, the data indicate that the process of object identification is relatively insensitive to location information and that object information and location information are coded fairly independently.