The magnitude and time course of pre-saccadic foveal prediction depend on the conspicuity of the saccade target

We previously demonstrated that during the preparation of a large-scale saccadic eye movement, defining features of the eye movement target (i.e., its orientation) are anticipated in pre-saccadic foveal vision (Kroell & Rolfs, 2022). In this Research Advance, we show that the conspicuity of orientation information at the saccade target location influences the magnitude and time course of foveal enhancement. As in our previous study, observers prepared a saccade to a peripheral orientation signal (the target) while monitoring the appearance of a second orientation signal (the probe) in their pre-saccadic center of gaze. The probe appeared in 50% of trials and either had the same orientation as the target (congruent) or a different orientation (incongruent). In the current study, we manipulated the opacity of the target against the 1/f background noise in four logarithmic steps from 25% to 90%. An increase in opacity translated to an increase in luminance contrast and the signal-to-noise ratio of orientation information within the target region. We made three main observations: First, foveal Hit Rates for target-congruent and incongruent probes decreased as target opacity increased, presumably since attention was increasingly drawn to the target the more salient it became. Crucially, foveal enhancement defined as the difference between congruent and incongruent Hit Rates increased with opacity. Second, the time course of foveal enhancement showed an oscillatory pattern that was particularly pronounced at higher target opacities. Third, unlike the difference in Hit Rates, the difference in False Alarm Rates did not vary with opacity. Instead, reverse correlations suggest that at higher target opacities, False Alarms were increasingly triggered by signal, that is, by incidental orientation information in the foveal noise. Beyond providing new mechanistic insights into active foveal processing, these findings are relevant for researchers planning to adapt our paradigm to study related questions. Presenting the saccade target at a high signal-to-noise ratio appears beneficial as congruency effects, especially when time-resolved, are most robustly detectable.