title: Saccadic compression of rectangle and Kanizsa figures: now you see it, now you don't.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Observers misperceive the location of points within a scene as compressed towards the goal of a saccade. However, recent studies suggest that saccadic compression does not occur for discrete elements such as dots when they are perceived as unified objects like a rectangle.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We investigated the magnitude of horizontal vs. vertical compression for Kanizsa figure (a collection of discrete elements unified into single perceptual objects by illusory contours) and control rectangle figures. Participants were presented with Kanizsa and control figures and had to decide whether the horizontal or vertical length of stimulus was longer using the two-alternative force choice method. Our findings show that large but not small Kanizsa figures are perceived as compressed, that such compression is large in the horizontal dimension and small or nil in the vertical dimension. In contrast to recent findings, we found no saccadic compression for control rectangles.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our data suggest that compression of Kanizsa figure has been overestimated in previous research due to methodological artifacts, and highlight the importance of studying perceptual phenomena by multiple methods.
authors.affiliation: Brain Science Institute, Tamagawa University, Tokyo, Japan. noritake.atsushi@gmail.com
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Noritake
authors.forename: Bob
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Uttl
authors.forename: Masahiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Terao
authors.forename: Masayoshi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nagai
authors.forename: Junji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Akihiro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yagi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012438:Saccades