Saccades and shifting receptive fields: anticipating consequences or selecting targets?

• We discuss the degree to which previous studies, both electrophysiological and psychophysical in monkeys and humans, provide unambiguous evidence for predictive remapping, or are in accordance with a convergent shift of receptive fields (RFs.)
• We discuss the role of dynamic attentional deployments to saccadic targets and their possible relationship to convergent RF shifts in the context of perceptual stability and spatial distortions across eye movements.
• We highlight outstanding questions and predictions for future research to foster our understanding of perisaccadic phenomena and perceptual stability.

Saccadic eye movements cause frequent and substantial displacements of the retinal image, but those displacements go unnoticed. It has been widely assumed that this perceived stability emerges from the shifting of visual receptive fields from their current, presaccadic locations to their future, postsaccadic locations in anticipation of the retinal consequences of saccades. Although evidence consistent with this anticipatory remapping has accumulated over the years, more recent work suggests an alternative view. In this opinion article, we examine the evidence of presaccadic receptive field shifts and their relationship to the perceptual changes that accompany saccades. We argue that both reflect the selection of targets for saccades rather than the anticipation of a displaced retinal image.