Saccades compress space, time and number

It has been suggested that space, time and number are represented on a common subjective scale. Saccadic eye movements provide a fascinating test. Saccades compress the perceived magnitude of spatial separations and temporal intervals to approximately half of their true value. The question arises as...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Trends in cognitive sciences 2010-12, Vol.14 (12), p.528-533
Main Authors: Burr, David C, Ross, John, Binda, Paola, Morrone, M. Concetta
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biological and medical sciences
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping
Cognition. Intelligence
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Mathematics
Miscellaneous
Neurology
Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Saccades - physiology
Space Perception - physiology
Spatial perception. Time perception
Time Perception - physiology
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Summary:It has been suggested that space, time and number are represented on a common subjective scale. Saccadic eye movements provide a fascinating test. Saccades compress the perceived magnitude of spatial separations and temporal intervals to approximately half of their true value. The question arises as to whether saccades also compress number. They do, and compression follows a very similar time course for all three attributes: it is maximal at saccadic onset and decreases to veridicality within a window of approximately 50 ms. These results reinforce the suggestion of a common perceptual metric, which is probably mediated by the intraparietal cortex; they further suggest that before each saccade the common metric for all three is reset, possibly to pave the way for a fresh analysis of the post-saccadic situation.
ISSN:1364-6613
1879-307X
DOI:10.1016/j.tics.2010.09.005